5 ms·

That's ridiculous, I would say in terms of preparation and creation an online course is probably nearly double the time of a physical one at a minimum.

say_it_as_it_is 6y ago
If that is the case, the school breaks even on effort after running the program twice and "profits" thereafter. The program can also theoretically be shared with the rest of the world.
- willj 6y ago
  That assumes that the effort can all be recorded. It is more likely that a lot of the extra time goes into answering student questions in an online forum and adjusting content on the fly based on students’ interests and/or confusion.
  - nanna 6y ago
    Totally. It also assumes that students will pay the UK's vast fees for a course made up entirely of non-interactive video content. And that teachers will grant the university the right to redistribute their videos, which is their IP. Honestly it feels like it boils down to the assumption that students will keep paying the same amount of money for a degree with a world famous university's branding. It seems to really be that transactional for senior management.
    - red_admiral 6y ago
      The IP argument is intresting because I've seen at least one Russell Group uni write into its employment T&C that the university owns the IP for any videos produced, retains these rights if the lecturer leaves and is allowed to licence them to third parties.
      - conistonwater 6y ago
        Why is this controversial? Everything you do at work is owned by the employer, is that not how it always works?
        ModernMech 6y ago
        Traditionally the instructor owns copyright for course material: “ Few reported cases exist addressing the issue of whether the educational institution or the faculty member owns the copyright to teaching materials prepared by a faculty member. All the reported cases that do exist have either held, or stated in dictum, that the copyright to the materials at issue in those cases belonged to the faculty member, at least in the absence of an explicit agreement to the contrary between the institution and the faculty member. Thus, cases have essentially followed the "teacher exception" to the work for hire rule.” https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&=&context=elj&=&sei-redir=1 https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        jamessb 6y ago
        That is the default, but it depends what your employment contract says. The relationship between a university and its academic staff is not quite a typical employer/employee relationship: academics have much more freedom to choose what to work on, and typically have more ownership of intellectual property they produce. This article gives a good introduction: Copyright ownership of e-learning and teaching materials: Policy approaches taken by UK universities https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10639-017-9583-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10639-017-9583-4
        conistonwater 6y ago
        Thanks, I did not know that.
        nanna 6y ago
        It's a fair question. No need to downvote.
- bachmeier 6y ago
  Lecture delivery is not anywhere close to 100% of teaching a university class. But just focusing on lecture delivery, your argument still doesn't work. Lectures have to change over time, both because you can do better with practice and because the material and real world change. I will say your view is very common among outsiders. I've heard it so many times from people that think I'm too dumb to notice something so obvious. Unfortunately lecture delivery just isn't a big part of the cost of teaching, and the online format only helps if you phone it in by never changing anything. If you do change something, you have the massive expense of recording the whole lecture all over again.
  - titzer 6y ago
    Yeah, absolutely. It's like people forget that teachers give assignments, answer questions, grade homeworks, run exams, and you know, do an actual job.
  - wtracy 6y ago
    > Lecture delivery is not anywhere close to 100% of teaching a university class. Absolutely true. > Lectures have to change over time, both because you can do better with practice and because the material and real world change. This is obviously going to be true for vocation-focused classes, but am I wrong in thinking that this is going to vary from field to field? Once you nail down your Math 101 lectures, do you really need to change them? Also, this is not a real argument, but I have seen universities where lectures were given by a professor, and Q&A office hours were provided by a TA. I imagine that some universities are thinking that they can have a professor write a lesson plan and record lectures, and then the class can be run in perpetuity by a team of grad students. (Cue laugh track.)
    - bachmeier 6y ago
      > Once you nail down your Math 101 lectures, do you really need to change them? This is one of the cases where you could (assuming the students don't change much). I teach macroeconomics. So far in my career some of the bigger events have included the bursting of the 90s tech bubble, 9/11, the Great Recession/financial crisis, the Greek debt crisis, Brexit, the election of Trump, and the pandemic. When I started teaching 20 years ago, the profession had settled on talking about managing long-term economic growth and viewed business cycles as being of secondary importance.
red_admiral 6y ago
Indeed, and in a year's time or so, the reckoning will start.
titzer 6y ago
There is some truth to this. For in-person lectures I could just show up to class with a general theme and blather onto the whiteboard, whereas online, all the students want text lecture notes, slides from the lecture, they don't ask questions during lecture, so they are confused, taking time later. If you spend time editing together a pre-recorded video, it can easily triple the amount of work. Even if you go with the pro-style one take, you need to rehearse and have a good plan in place to make such a video.
- secfirstmd 6y ago
  Absolutely. I felt like I was documentary producer as well as an educator when doing our online courses.
- Wohlf 6y ago
  Could you not re-use the same lecture though?

say_it_as_it_is 6y ago

If that is the case, the school breaks even on effort after running the program twice and "profits" thereafter. The program can also theoretically be shared with the rest of the world.

willj 6y ago
That assumes that the effort can all be recorded. It is more likely that a lot of the extra time goes into answering student questions in an online forum and adjusting content on the fly based on students’ interests and/or confusion.
- nanna 6y ago
  Totally. It also assumes that students will pay the UK's vast fees for a course made up entirely of non-interactive video content. And that teachers will grant the university the right to redistribute their videos, which is their IP. Honestly it feels like it boils down to the assumption that students will keep paying the same amount of money for a degree with a world famous university's branding. It seems to really be that transactional for senior management.
  - red_admiral 6y ago
    The IP argument is intresting because I've seen at least one Russell Group uni write into its employment T&C that the university owns the IP for any videos produced, retains these rights if the lecturer leaves and is allowed to licence them to third parties.
    - conistonwater 6y ago
      Why is this controversial? Everything you do at work is owned by the employer, is that not how it always works?
      - ModernMech 6y ago
        Traditionally the instructor owns copyright for course material: “ Few reported cases exist addressing the issue of whether the educational institution or the faculty member owns the copyright to teaching materials prepared by a faculty member. All the reported cases that do exist have either held, or stated in dictum, that the copyright to the materials at issue in those cases belonged to the faculty member, at least in the absence of an explicit agreement to the contrary between the institution and the faculty member. Thus, cases have essentially followed the "teacher exception" to the work for hire rule.” https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&=&context=elj&=&sei-redir=1 https://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - jamessb 6y ago
        That is the default, but it depends what your employment contract says. The relationship between a university and its academic staff is not quite a typical employer/employee relationship: academics have much more freedom to choose what to work on, and typically have more ownership of intellectual property they produce. This article gives a good introduction: Copyright ownership of e-learning and teaching materials: Policy approaches taken by UK universities https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10639-017-9583-4 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10639-017-9583-4
        conistonwater 6y ago
        Thanks, I did not know that.
      - nanna 6y ago
        It's a fair question. No need to downvote.
bachmeier 6y ago
Lecture delivery is not anywhere close to 100% of teaching a university class. But just focusing on lecture delivery, your argument still doesn't work. Lectures have to change over time, both because you can do better with practice and because the material and real world change. I will say your view is very common among outsiders. I've heard it so many times from people that think I'm too dumb to notice something so obvious. Unfortunately lecture delivery just isn't a big part of the cost of teaching, and the online format only helps if you phone it in by never changing anything. If you do change something, you have the massive expense of recording the whole lecture all over again.
- titzer 6y ago
  Yeah, absolutely. It's like people forget that teachers give assignments, answer questions, grade homeworks, run exams, and you know, do an actual job.
- wtracy 6y ago
  > Lecture delivery is not anywhere close to 100% of teaching a university class. Absolutely true. > Lectures have to change over time, both because you can do better with practice and because the material and real world change. This is obviously going to be true for vocation-focused classes, but am I wrong in thinking that this is going to vary from field to field? Once you nail down your Math 101 lectures, do you really need to change them? Also, this is not a real argument, but I have seen universities where lectures were given by a professor, and Q&A office hours were provided by a TA. I imagine that some universities are thinking that they can have a professor write a lesson plan and record lectures, and then the class can be run in perpetuity by a team of grad students. (Cue laugh track.)
  - bachmeier 6y ago
    > Once you nail down your Math 101 lectures, do you really need to change them? This is one of the cases where you could (assuming the students don't change much). I teach macroeconomics. So far in my career some of the bigger events have included the bursting of the 90s tech bubble, 9/11, the Great Recession/financial crisis, the Greek debt crisis, Brexit, the election of Trump, and the pandemic. When I started teaching 20 years ago, the profession had settled on talking about managing long-term economic growth and viewed business cycles as being of secondary importance.

red_admiral 6y ago

Indeed, and in a year's time or so, the reckoning will start.

titzer 6y ago

There is some truth to this. For in-person lectures I could just show up to class with a general theme and blather onto the whiteboard, whereas online, all the students want text lecture notes, slides from the lecture, they don't ask questions during lecture, so they are confused, taking time later. If you spend time editing together a pre-recorded video, it can easily triple the amount of work. Even if you go with the pro-style one take, you need to rehearse and have a good plan in place to make such a video.

secfirstmd 6y ago
Absolutely. I felt like I was documentary producer as well as an educator when doing our online courses.
Wohlf 6y ago
Could you not re-use the same lecture though?