1. ‘The Futures of Distance Education’ Ormond Simpson
Visiting Fellow, Centre for Distance Education, University of London
Previously Visiting Professor, Open Polytechnic of New Zealand
Previously Senior Lecturer in Institutional Research, Open University

2. Six futures?
Technological
Social
Ethical
Psychological
Financial
Political

3. Technological futures?
MOOCS
Virtual reality
Artificial intelligence
Learning analytics
Social software
Podcasts and flipped classrooms
Mobile learning
Games
Assessment and feedback developments
Emotion detection systems

4. Technological futures – MOOCS Massive Online Open Courses
Millions enrolled
But:
Completion rates = 7% or less
>80% of participants have degrees already so not a solution to access yet
No-one has yet found a way of running them profitably
The UK Open University
MOOC

5. Technological futures - Virtual Reality (VR)
A headset with VR can feel like being in a classroom for real
But:
Sets are very expensive
Needs very high quality broadband
Some people who’ve tried it have found the technology distracts from the learning content

6. Technological futures? Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Using a robot to answer students’ questions
Once a robot is set up it is very inexpensive to run and students seem to like it
But:
Is very expensive and time-consuming to set up
Still very experimental

7. Article in Times higher education 10/11/2016
‘…the journey towards a virtual tutor that can help lecturers to do their job appears to have taken a significant step forward with Pearson’s announcement that it will use IBM’s Watson computer system as a teaching assistant on its learning resources.’
But a later article says ‘Higher education teacher’ least likely to be replaced by AI

8. Technological futures - Learning analytics
Using student data to monitor their learning so tutors can intervene
The data analysis systems are already available
But:
Not much evidence of usefulness so far in retention
Privacy issues
However:
Could have a good future for both retention and research

9. Learning analytics – UKOU example
‘Scholarly insight 2016: a Data wrangler perspective’
From Open Research Online

10. Learning analytics – UKOU example
But still the problem of out-of-date data….

11. Facebook
Social software
Using social software to support students and link them up
Software already exists
But:
There’s many different systems – how to choose?
Evidence about effectiveness still lacking
Privacy issues - abuse
Yammer
WhatsApp
Snapchat
Yik Yak
Twitter
Viber
SMS
(text messaging)

12. Technological futures - Podcasts and flipped classrooms
Podcasts – online presentations with voice commentary
EMPOWER project
‘Theories of Student Support’

13. Technological futures - Podcasts and flipped classrooms
– students watch a podcast or video before class
Then the class used for exercises projects and discussions

14. Technological futures – Mobile learning
Students use mobile devices for learning wherever they are
Smart phones
Smart phones and Tablets an use learning apps – eg Duolingo - which don’t need an internet connection
Tablets
E-books E-books are inexpensive but not interactive

15. Technological futures - Games
Using ‘serious games’ online for teaching topics
But:
Little evidence of usefulness so far in online teaching
However:
Could have a good future
Some evidence for using games in health promotion - eg ‘cancer’ games - used to get young people to take their drugs

16. Technological futures - Assessment and feedback developments
‘E-assessment’ to give speedy instant progress feedback
One of the most important developments – ‘knowing how well you’re doing’
But plagiarism increasingly serious problem – not just copying, but buying assignments written by someone else – eg see essaywritingserviceuk.co.uk/
Will be important to develop good systems – see the TeSLA e-assessment project run by the EU

17. Technological futures - Emotional detection systems
Using a webcam on a students computer to detect a student’s emotions so a tutor can intervene
Systems are for sale – eg
But:
Very little evidence of usefulness so far
Ethical and privacy issues

18. How far will Distance Education reach?
Social futures
How far will Distance Education reach?
‘The Open University Online’
‘The Open University Classic’
- Professor John Daniels

19. Social futures
Sri Lanka Internet users (individual who can access the internet at home on any device)
% of households

20. Mobile phone ownership in Sri Lanka = 105% Smart phone ownership = ?
Social futures
Mobile phone ownership in Sri Lanka = 105%
Smart phone ownership = ?

21. social exclusion
noun
exclusion from the prevailing social system and its rights and privileges, typically as a result of poverty or the fact of belonging to a minority social group.

22. ‘Open To People – Open With People: Ethical Issues
Ethical futures
‘Open To People – Open With People: Ethical Issues
In Open Learning’
- chapter in ‘Ethical Practices and Implications in Distance Learning’
Ed. Demiray and Sharma, Pub. IGI Global
7 A few years ago I was asked to write chapter for a book on ethical issues in distance education. I called my chapter ‘Open to people – open with people’ for reasons I’ll come back to in a moment.
What surprised me in researching for my chapter is how little had been written about ethics in distance education #

23. Ethical issues in Distance Education
‘A literature search reveals little concern with ethical questions among professionals in distance education’ (Visser, 2001)
‘The increasing use of IT in Distance Education may enhance unethical behaviours because of ‘psychological distance’’. (Gearhart 2001)
8. Not only were there indications that there wasn’t much interest, there were even suggestions that IT developments might lead to more unethical behaviour because of ‘psychological distance’ – the way that lack of physical presence could and does lead to hostile behaviour online – such as ‘flaming’ =- sending insulting s.
I did find some views about how to judge ethical issues in education settings #

24. ‘Commitments and ethical reasoning’ (Pratt 1998)
There are two types of commitment to guide ethical reasoning:
1. A commitment to justice
2. A commitment to caring
9. This was Professor Pratt’s suggestion that you needed to taken into account at least two types of commitment when judging ethical issues
- commitment to justice, and commitment to caring. These are sometimes in conflict – perhaps the most obvious example in education is assessment where there is a conflict between the justice of failing a student whilst at the same time caring for them in some way. I’ll come back to that later.
This seemed like a useful way to start so I thought about applying the Pratt system to a couple of distance learning dilemmas. #

25. Ethical issues in distance learning Example: Recruitment vs Retention
13. There has always been a tension between recruitment and retention . Your marketing Department probably wants to bring in as many students as possible. But that may mean that they might recruit students who are more likely to dropout.
In UK a new Student Loan scheme means that it appears to universities that they get most of their income from recruiting students so the emphasis on marketing has become even more important in recent years. That has led to some rather dubious marketing. #

26. 14. This is the front page of the OU site – it says ‘Every year we help thousands of ordinary people achieve extraordinary things. You could be one of them’. No where does it say that only around 20% of people do achieve anything.

27. Psychological futures Understanding how distance students learn
We need much more research into how distance students learn
Particularly into how to keep them motivated to learn

28. Financial futures
Demand for higher education internationally is hugely increasing
Distance education is more economical
than conventional education
Distance education is more sustainable
But only if dropout rates are lowered…

29. International Competition
Political futures
International Competition
British and Irish
Modern Music Institute
Arden University
London School
of Business and Management
New Private higher education institutions in the UK

31. Outsourcing
Outsourcing student support
– see
Outsourcing admissions advice
- see
Outsourcing retention
– see
Outsourcing staff development
– see epigeum.com

32. Research in Distance Education Conference
'Innovations? - have a flutter!'
Research in Distance Education Conference
London – March 2017

35. What do you think are the futures for OUSL?
Technological
Social
Ethical
Psychological
Financial
Political

36. ‘Prediction is very difficult – especially about the future’
Niels Bohr
‘Prediction is very difficult – especially about the future’

37. A teacher who cares that you learn
Some good books

38. “Civilisation is in a race between education and catastrophe”
H.G Wells
“Civilisation is in a race between education and catastrophe”