EDEN reflection: Back to the future?

I enjoyed the recent EDEN 2016 conference in Budapest immensely. It was great to connect with European ODL professionals, and an honour to be elected to the Executive Committee. As with all conferences, EDEN brought together a variety of perspectives and presentations that stimulate, inspire, and sometimes frustrate. Stimulation, inspiration and frustration are, for me, the hallmarks of an effective event! The place where these overlap provides a wonderful starting point for reflection.

EDEN was also a wonderful opportunity to catch up with the “who’s who” of the ODL world and, of course, to sight-see the beautiful Budapest!



No single photo could do this vibrant and picturesque city justice, least of all any of mine! So, back to the conference.

Firstly, there was plenty to stimulate. Keynotes were very thought-provoking, and the various parallel sessions I intended were extremely worthwhile.

There were (for me) two specific frustrations in the perspectives shared.

  • One of the key issues (in fact the target of the conference debate) was concerned with whether MOOCs or OERs are more worthy of focus. My frustrated answer: How about neither? Tony Bates made his (already clear!) views about MOOCs known, suffice to say I’m in agreement with him (my own view is that if MOOCs do actually survive the next few years it will be because they have morphed to become what we already know about effective distance education, done online). Yet OERs are also about as far from being the means of ‘opening up’ education, despite several long-standing efforts. The reason for the failure of OER is at least twofold: firstly, there is more to opening up education than making resources freely available, as a valuable upcoming JRC report will make clear (ten facets of open education were introduced at the conference). Second is a fundamental misunderstanding that still sometimes makes an appearance (bullet point below), claiming that... 
  • “Universities are in trouble because knowledge is now readily available”. My frustration here is that the statement is codswallop (or bullpucky, depending on your preference). Libraries, then, have always ‘threatened’ universities? Universities are not about transferring knowledge; they are about generating understanding and attesting to someone’s attainment of a level of understanding, relative to a specific body of knowledge. Knowledge is the means, not the end, of education. OERs are, at best, raw materials and not education. Google and Wikipedia at best provide raw materials, not the end product. In the UK at least, universities are in trouble because they are unable to respond to shifting demand and calls for more of the three ‘E’s of (graduate) Employability, Efficiency and Effectiveness. Which sort of brings me back to “whether MOOCs or OERs are more worthy of focus. How about neither?”

Two perspectives encountered at the event gave me hope (the 'inspire' part of the conference!) The first was the presentation by Alan Tait of the UK OU, “Student success in open, distance and E-Learning”, based on the ECDE report of the same name (http://www.icde.org/assets/WHAT_WE_DO/studentsuccess.pdf). The report is a reminder of just how simple it is to do distance education (and, by extension, online learning) well. If all institutions simply took Alan’s report to heart ODL would be in a far better place. The second was a theme (re)introduced by Michael G Moore on the last day of the conference, in his brief presentation called “Tradition and innovations: getting the right mix”. A disclaimer, first: Professor Moore supervised one of my PhD supervisor’s doctorate. And, given my classical DE training, I have a natural tendency to bring older DE theory into my thinking. Anyways, in his brief address Prof Moore stated that “opportunities for innovation are being missed” because one central tenet of classical distance education is being overlooked: individual learning. Prof Moore added that “autonomy is the third element of distance education… it is time to revisit the independent learning tradition!” The other two dimensions in Moore’s theory of transactional distance are dialogue and structure. I’ll assume you’re familiar enough with the theory. Moore’s point is that online education seems to have been hijacked by those seeking to embed synchronous teaching and social media into the distance education mix, when in fact neither are actually necessary. Many students learn just fine on their own, with appropriate support systems in place. Prof Moore confided that he was hesitant in mentioning this as he considered it may be controversial. More sadly perhaps it was overlooked!

Ultimately I take from the conference the timeliness of looking back to the future. I think it’s high time we revisited classic DE theory – the works of Holmberg, Peters, Moore, and others – to (re)apply their wisdom to emerging ODL and online-only education. The longer in the tooth I get in ODL the more I’m convinced that it is models of online education based on sound distance education theory that will take us forward. MOOCs implicitly claim that classic DE theory is not necessary, and OERs seem to consider that ideology is enough in itself. I don't think either are correct.

So why do we not see this sort of education - classic DE done online - already in practice? Part of the problem is that ‘sound distance education’ is firmly in the 'print-age' for established open universities.

The 'online-age' of distance education is coming, and it will be the answer to the 3 E’s...

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