Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Free Online Courses Don't Hurt Enrollment

When customers visit Amazon.com, the Web site lets them sample parts of books for free. Some open-education advocates think this try-it-before-you-buy-it idea offers an answer to one of the biggest questions facing the movement to publish course materials free online: What business model can support giving away your content?

New research takes a close look at what happened when one institution, Brigham Young University, experimented with granting free access to the content of some of its distance-education courses. The study examined the cost of opening up those materials and the impact their publication had on paid enrollments, a concern for institutions worried that giving away free courses could cannibalize their ranks of paying students.

The data suggest they needn’t worry.
But, of course, most faculty shall oppose online education, the same way the GOP is a party of no :)
The rest of the article here.

0 comments: