Learning: not all about content delivery;
Courses: not all about learning

Another subject I've intended blogging about, but probably never got around to, was UKeU, or UK eUniversity. A few articles over the last month have described the sudden demise of this institution, which received significant government funding (£62m, I believe) to develop a UK university-level offering for online learning.

So what went wrong? The nail in the coffin was an article in The Observer last year concerning expenditure and student numbers (fewer than 1,000). This led to investigation by the relevant government department, and all went downhill from there.

But more seriously, UKeU spent large sums on a technology 'platform' (supplied by Sun), but seemingly failed to investigate the real need for online learning at tertiary level, or the dynamics of e-learning, and was perhaps overly naive concerning the attributes of face-to-face learning that could be readily transferred to the online environment. The expenditure figures reveal much marketing but no research.

So why do people go to classes? I live in London, and it attracts a considerable share of face-to-face students. Why do foreign students sign up for courses at London universities? Partly for the prestige of London University or another of the capital's institutions, but partly because they want to be *in London*, because they and their families want to be able to say 'She's at a university in London, she's living in London'. It's cool, it's fun, it contributes status to the individual *and* the family in their own community, and all this is intimately connected to the experience of being in London: new ways of living, going to the theatre and to concerts, going to trendy bars, being in a happening place... How does online address this status, experiencing, sharing, boasting.....?

Furthermore, online learning also requires considerable discipline on the part of students. With no weekly lectures and seminars, students need considerable self-discipline to be able to make the most of it and not give up. More so when younger students are concerned.

While living in southern Europe, I learned a lot about the computer education game. Southern Europe has for some time been packed with private language schools catering for toddlers, schoolchildren, young adults and professionals. Not to mention in-company language classes. It's a major industry, driven by the need to learn English: to get a job, to get promotion, to get into the civil service.....

In the early-mid 90s, half a dozen enterprises opened up across southern Europe and elsewhere across the non-English speaking world, offering computer language training through thousands of high-street outlets. Wall Street Institute (owned by US learning major Sylvan Learning Systems) was one of them. Opening English School was another. All had very expensive marketing operations. The deal was up-front payment by students, giving unlimited 'flexible' access to computer-based materials, and occasional sessions with badly paid gap-year tutors.

In the last few years, all of these enterprises have contracted, branched out into other - face-to-face - areas, or failed. It was clear early on to those on the ground that this would happen, and why. Yes, everyone wants to learn English - these organisations' main sales vehicle - but few people have the self-discipline to be able to pursue a course of study without turning up at an appointed hour twice a week, homework in hand. The sense of obligation, of commitment, of guilt, of 'owing the teacher', had gone.

Give people ultimate flexibility, and they generally fail to do anything. A bit like failing to go to the gym for which you pay a subscription (which you then stop when you come to your senses).

Usability, in this context, is almost irrelevant. If the student never makes it to the computer, the student is never even going to get to see the interface, the interaction, the learning programme you have developed. As an educator, you are not competing with another, better interface, interaction or learning programme. You are competing with the bar, the family, friends, a club, a concert, frequent dinners out, the - cheap - cinema. And, perhaps, the beach.

Spanish, Italian and Portuguese face-to-face language schools - and no doubt many more elsewhere with which I'm less familiar - are full of people who expensively 'failed' the computer-based learning way. Luckily for the owners of the computer-based learning academies - and unluckily for their students - fees were invariably paid up front. The old-time face-to-face schools have now picked up the students they lost during the 90s.

At the other end of the spectrum, face-to-face language and other after-school private classes for youngsters in non-English speaking countries - amazingly popular around the Med - are often little more than child-care operations, making sure that kids are not run over before their parents get home. Learning is not the issue for most parents: if their children pick up a dozen words of another language, parents regard this as a bonus. Many children attend a class on most days after school.

And a final example: many adults attend adult education classes in the UK not so much to learn, but rather to meet new people, occupy their time, get out of the house. Queues for registration each term are full of people coming back to do yet another course in yet another subject, which can carry on for decades.

In summary, face-to-face tuition may fulfil many functions beyond pure content delivery and knowledge acquisition, something that the e-learning community seems not to have taken on board. A number of these functions cannot be so easily replicated in the online environment. Why should an online university pretend to break the mould of human behaviour? As someone said to me the other day, "when I hear the words 'paradigm shift', the alarm bells start ringing".

A little e-learning is a dangerous thing (21 March)

E-university set to be dismantled (27 April)