£20m government aid for distance learning may be wasted

Web 2.0 and mobile technology still not pervasive in distance learning

The UK government is to spend £20m in marketing UK universities as centres of online learning for foreign students, having formed a new taskforce dedicated to exploiting the international market for distance learning courses and encouraging universities to make better use of mobile and Web 2.0 technology.

It is currently estimated that the UK attracts more than 100,000 international students per year, earning the education sector more than £200m in fees.

The taskforce will be backed by up to £10m of funding from the Open Learning Innovation Fund, expected to be matched by another £10m from the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

“Advances such as 3G, webcasts and Web 2.0 will allow UK universities to reach out to communities as far flung as Africa and Hong Kong and to deliver high-quality, student-centred higher education across the globe… using mobile technologies such as PDAs and MP3 players,” said higher education minister David Lammy in a statement.

The government announcement follows the publication of a study by think-tank Demos, which suggests that higher education must make better use of IT to support education and reach out to potential students.

"The UK is the second largest market for international students and obviously UK universities would like to keep it that way, but there is also a lot to be said for new technologies being able to reach new students who were previously inaccessible," said Demos researcher Peter Bradwell.

"Distance learning and online learning is a very attractive revenue source for institutions and much cheaper than offering the same course on campus in terms of scalability," added Datamonitor senior analyst for public sector technology, Nicole Engelbert.

Bradwell adds that so far, only a small number of higher education establishments are keen on using new technology, however, with many institutions and individual lecturers and researchers remaining wary of new technology.

"[Take up] is mixed. The British Educational Communicatins and Technology Association (Becta) has been encouraging it, and the Open University has been good at finding ways of using new technology for distance learning purposes, but the education sector in general needs more encouragement and financial incentives," he said.

"It is not widespread by a long shot. Changing what HE considers to be its technical core is extraordinarily difficult, not least from a time and resource perspective," said Engelbert.

Using video and audio files to share lectures and tutorials is one way of porting educational content to mobile devices, but remote students can also use collaborative technologies such as instant messaging (IM), whiteboards and social networking to communicate with teachers.

But while the capability for students to record their own projects and upload them into some form of learning management solution so that peers and faculty members can add content and comment exists, assimilation into official educational infrastructure is limited.

"Google apps, Google docs and things like that are really democratising online learning, and social networking and other Web 2.0 technologies are also being used," said Engelbert. "But the extent to which that is spilling over into the classroom is still early days."

Fears that the government's agenda will be highjacked by hardware and software companies keen to cash in on the deal also remain. Senior representatives from companies including Microsoft and Apple – both of which have a vested interest in encouraging greater use of mobile devices – will sit on the taskforce, which will be chaired by Lynne Brindley, the chief executive of the British Museum.

"That's always been a problem but there is always a bit of ground to cover before all courses are offered either as an online or a hybrid online model," said Engelbert. "There is a bit of rhetoric involved in saying look how exciting this technology is, but the actuality is very different."