Thought Leaders in Online Education: Karen Francis, CEO of Academix Direct (Part 7)

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. What are your thoughts about liberal arts colleges? I went to a liberal arts college as well. I went to Smith College. About five years ago, Smith started this big investment on a new engineering building. It was very plush. They invited me to speak at the opening. It was clear that the college was going through a lot of soul-searching like most other liberal arts colleges. What is the future of liberal arts education?

Karen Francis: I have a grand vision for what a liberal arts college experience could be. I say those words very precisely. Just because technology is enabling things to open up, doesn’t mean that the college campus can’t do that. I actually think that the real opportunity here is to look at places like Smith and Dartmouth and say, “You go there, but you’re not bound by the boundaries of the geography or the professors who choose to teach there for what you’re going to learn and experience.” >>>

Thought leaders in Online Education: Gary Matkin, Dean of Continuing Education, UC Irvine (Part 7)

Sramana: What are some of the other trends occurring in this space now?

Gary Matkin: In general, there is a very large gap in the technology that is presently being offered. That gap is conventionally called content management. Publishers are doing more and more to create content that is quite well managed. Learning management systems are using some of that stuff, but learning management systems and content management systems the way the publishers are doing it are fighting a bit. I have seen that those communities are starting to work together a bit better. >>>

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Thought Leaders in Online Education: Karen Francis, CEO of Academix Direct (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Do you work with a lot of for-profit colleges?

Karen Francis: We work with any content providers. Some people are not institutions in the way that you and I would think of it.

Sramana Mitra: Your marketing service is for any kind of online or educational program?

Karen Francis: Yes. On the Academix Direct site, we work with any post-secondary institutions whether it’s traditional brick-and-mortar, online, or blended – which most of them are. Even the ones you think are traditional have online components now. The CourseTalk site is all online.

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Thought leaders in Online Education: Gary Matkin, Dean of Continuing Education, UC Irvine (Part 6)

Sramana: Even in the future, this is something that will have to be done with technology. Teachers need to be empowered to use that technology. I just don’t see how teachers can be required to architect the design.

Gary Matkin: It is going to have to be done more and more by teachers. They are going to have to get more involved with the design of courses than they are now.

Sramana: They may be involved in the course design process but that does not necessarily mean that they are going to have to do learning architecture design. I think we disagree here. I just don’t see ‘teachers as architects’ being scalable.

Gary Matkin: I don’t agree with you on that point of view. The most effective teachers we have right now are those who are involved with design. They are coming up with very creative solutions to convey information that our designers would not have otherwise conveyed. Our designers do not have the domain expertise to know that the content should have been there. Teachers, when they understand what the design elements are, can produce some wonderful stuff. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Karen Francis, CEO of Academix Direct (Part 5)

Karen Francis: To that end, we are paying a lot of attention not just to the individual course certifications but series certifications. edX is leading down this path. One of the next things that we’ll be introducing on our site in the next couple of months is the ability to upload your certification and then attach it to your official transcript. You might go to high school and you have a transcript from your high school. You don’t want to go to college the way that other people might think about it. You know which skills you want and you want to be able to prove to an employer that you’ve mastered it. You will be able to take that certification and attach that to your official transcript.

Sramana Mitra: You are maintaining consumer records on their certifications and transcripts?

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Thought leaders in Online Education: Gary Matkin, Dean of Continuing Education, UC Irvine (Part 5)

Sramana: Let’s explore your continuing education business in greater detail.

Gary Matkin: Continuing education is dominated by people who want convenient, high quality material that is very relevant. Cost is not the primary concern. If you can provide courses that meet those criteria, then you are in the market, and that is what we service. Convenience is enhanced by putting the courses online. We also have those classes on the evenings and weekends, but the online aspect makes it possible for working adults to take any class online.

Sramana: What percentage of your continuing education courses are delivered online today?

Gary Matkin: A little over half. >>>

Thought Leaders in Online Education: Karen Francis, CEO of Academix Direct (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: I have a bunch of questions on that. These are, again, trend questions. One of the big problems with the Internet, in my view, is that it’s a free-rider and free-loader population. What percentage of your traffic are paying users as opposed to people looking for free courses?

Karen Francis: The only way I could answer that right now would be to give you metrics on the paid course sales. I would say we’re too early for that. Most of the people on our site are connecting to free courses. I think that’s largely because they don’t know that they’re available yet. We’re really at the early stages of adding the courses. We’re just getting exposure now for those people who are willing to pay.

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