boutique /bu:’ti:k/ 1. a small shop selling fashionable clothes or accessories 2. a business serving a sophisticated or specialised clientele We’ve seen the rise of the boutique hotel - small and  individual hotels. Focused on being comfortable, intimate, stylish and aspirational. They are set apart from the homogeneity of their large chain rivals. Could we see the rise of the ‘boutique university’? Well, what would the characteristics of a boutique university be? Small scale and individual. Each boutique university would be a small scale affair. Offering a localised service and specialising in a particular theme of learning. Probably concentrating on the business, tech and design subjects. The skills that will help drive the developing urban tech scenes. In effect, serving the growing market of ‘skill hackers’. Skill Hacker: noun; a person that continuously revisits, reinvents and reinvests in skills. A restless pursuit of new skills to offset declining market value of existing abilities. Core competencies are flexibility, adaptability and speed of learning. Curating the best of available online resources. The internet has given us choice. It can seem at times like too much choice. The ability to curate a valued collection of anything now has value. Shops of curated collections are bucking the trend and being successful on the high street. Be it travel agents, stationery shops or, perhaps, learning providers. This would be a personal service. To help a learner identify where they want their career to go.What skills would help them get there. And what mix of online courses would best help them gain those skills. A bricks and mortar presence. A place for learners to hang out. A bar or cafe perhaps. A place to network or relax. Maybe a recognised presence in an existing establishment. But it will be stylish. And it will have the vibe and energy of a place on the up. A feeling that everyone there is going places. There’ll be real people too. A ‘concierge’ to sort out issues. Access to face to face mentor support if needed. Regardless of the range of online courses being taken. A friendly face locally will be the only person who needs to be contacted to sort out any issue. They will do the chasing up. And if the learner needs a little extra help on a particularly tricky issue? The establishment will have someone in their contact book who they can speak to. Not just someone who can help, but someone who helps introduce learners to new networks of people. Coffee table text books? Paper can still hold a certain allure. Even for technology lovers. Hard copy text books are still popular. How about a text book that is as stylish as it is informative? Designs by up and coming designers. Collectables. There is a print revival taking place.  Well designed publications with premium content are in demand. In the right areas. The up and coming areas. The places with a vibrancy and culture that signal a neighbourhood that is going places. Links to real work. Coding boot camps that offer a high chance of employment after course completion have seen huge demand. Boutique universities will have links with local organisations. And these organisations will offer the opportunity of gaining some practical, real world, experience. This would be popular and useful. And the systems? Based on existing third party tools. No need for inhouse software. The learning would take place primarily in the apps and websites developed by the third party learning providers. Other activities such as social interaction, monitoring productivity and documentation would be based on existing apps and tools that learners are likely to use in their day to day social and work lives. An actual university? No, not actual a universities. But universities will start moving into this area of semi formal learning. Where the emphasis is on career development but the learning does not result in a formal qualification. Learners will look for the provider who offers the best all round experience and results. The distinction between traditional universities and new learning providers may become largely irrelevant. Would learners prefer links with real world businesses and networks? Or links to academic networks? How would they raise money? Monthly subscriptions. Much the same way people are happy to pay a membership to a gym. With the boutique university they can pay a monthly fee to get their skill set and  career prospects in shape. A good investment, no? So, just some thoughts on what the future might hold. Is there a place for boutique universities? Would you attend one? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts. Let me know either by commenting here or giving me a shout on twitter.

And how these learners will disrupt education. People, not technology, will disrupt education. The field of education is going to change dramatically. Technology will be at the root of this change. But it won’t change education directly . The world is changing in so many ways as a result of technological advances. This changing world is generating a new market of learners. These are learners are looking to study in new ways. It will be these learners who disrupt education. Technology will serve that new, disruptive, market of learners. Lean learning? The concept of ‘lean’ has its basis in industry. It is a systematic process for the elimination of waste from processes. Removing the waste leaves only the bits of the processes that add value. It helped industry become more efficient. It saved time, effort and money. And it still produced a good quality product. Variations on the lean concept are used by the tech industry. Agile processes in software development help manage uncertainty when planning. In new and existing tech businesses the lean startup mindset has become popular. It helps teams develop products that will actually be useful. It prevents the development of features that serve no benefit. And now learners are using their own version. This prevents them from wasting time, effort and money. They won’t continue with studies that aren’t going to satisfy their aims. Why now? "The rate of technology driven change outpaces our ability to train people in new skills, putting tremendous pressure on entire classes of workers and the economic structure of many nations." - Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg in "How Google Works". In the past we would undertake long periods of study. This was often before embarking on a career or a career change. We could plan ahead the direction we hoped our career would go. We would understand how our learning would enable us to progress through this career. Sometimes the learning wasn’t directly applicable. But we could see how have the qualification could help our career. But this model is diminishing in relevance for many people.  It looks to become even less relevant in the future. The world of work is changing fast. And the rate of change is only going to get faster. Those set piece periods of learning are becoming less relevant. There is too much uncertainty about what job options will be available. People don’t know what skill sets they will need for future career progression. Some of the skills won’t even exist yet. Continuous personal development is now the leading factor in determining career progression. There is a reduced benefit in front loading our careers with learning. We now need to undertake a form of Agile career development. Have a broad outcome in mind but deal with the how we’ll get there on the way. Lean learning will help. It will help obtain the relevant skills and understanding. But it will do it in an effective and efficient way. What defines lean learning? It is learning that aims for a specific learning outcome. The learning outcome is more important than any qualification/badge attached to it. Learners will avoid processes/actions that don’t directly support achieving that outcome. The learner is constantly evaluating whether: Their learning outcome has been met They think their learning outcome will be met efficiently if they continue The learner will mentally ‘chunk’ their learning. By session, by day, by week etc. At the end of the chunk the learner will carry out a quick evaluation. Have they learned what they wanted to know? If so, great. Maybe they’ll decide to carry on and learn more. Otherwise they’ll stop. If they haven’t learned what they wanted to know?  Then they will decide if continuing is likely to lead to  them achieving their learning goal. If yes, they’ll continue. But if not they’ll stop. And they will look for a new learning provider. There’s no value in them continuing. But there is an opportunity cost. Their scarce time and effort could be spent elsewhere. The lean startup methodology is based upon the ‘Build > Measure > Learn cycle’. Lean learning has the ‘Study > Evaluate > Decide’ cycle at its core. And the desired outcome will be a specific piece of understanding or skill. Not a qualification. How is this possible now? There are fewer barriers to learning. Learners have greater access to free or low cost courses.. It is possible to learn without the financial commitment of the past. Low or zero cost to entry means learners are comfortable leaving a course. There isn’t the sunk cost of a large course fee playing on their mind. Courses that offer low monthly subscriptions allow flexibility. They often offer a wide range of resources as part of the subscription. It gives the learner more control over what direction their studies take. We are becoming happier to pay a subscription for content. This is happening in all areas of our digital lives. The range of courses available to learners is growing rapidly. And will continue to grow. These courses also offer the freedom to study as and when it suits the learner. The learning experience fits around the life of the learner. It’s a learner centric experience. The learner, and their personal situation, comes first. Real life long learning? It’s important to note that lean learning does not mean less learning. Lean learning allows for more learning. Learning the right things as and when needed throughout your life. Real life long learning. So what does this mean for learning providers? Learners are becoming lean. Learning providers will need to ensure their products fit the market’s needs. They will need to make their courses efficient and effective. They need to ensure that learners constantly feel that their time and effort will be rewarded. That they will achieve the outcome they seek. Anything in the course that does not add value will need to removed. In short, the educators will need to become lean. This is how I see this new market developing. And I think this market will be huge. I’d love to hear your views on this. Please leave a comment or give me a shout on twitter @steve_p_uk

Are online learning providers educators or technology companies? In the 40 years since its formation the Open University has become a world leader in distance learning. It has been pioneering its use of technology. Delivering quality education through supported open learning. And it has done this as a university. But, with the dawning of the internet age, should it consider itself a technology company? I read an interesting article from Paul Graham. Paul spent time during the late nineties at Yahoo. Yahoo are the Internet company who have never really fulfilled their potential. For me, there was one particularly interesting, and pertinent, aspect of this article. And that was that Yahoo were ambivalent about considering themselves a technology company. They insisted on calling themselves a media company. They had developers writing code and product managers thinking about features and release dates. They had all the constituent parts of a technology company. But they sold ads. That wasn’t how technology companies made money in 1995. Media companies made money by selling ads. Therefore, in their eyes, they were a media company. The result was that they didn’t take technology seriously enough. Coding was a commodity rather than central to their culture. They didn’t attract the best programmers. Good coders want to work with good coders. As a result their products simply weren’t great. Then Google started to make their presence felt. And they most definitely are a technology company. Yahoo just couldn’t compete. Google, with their ‘hacker culture’ had top class staff actively looking to solve problems. Yahoo had mediocre staff delivering the products they were asked to deliver. And it isn’t just Google who have this attitude. Amazon aims to be ‘the everything store’. But it considers itself to be a tech company more than a retailer. Uber (official name - Uber Technologies Inc) is disrupting the taxi market. But it states it is a technology company. The list goes on. Having the culture of a technology company is beneficial in the rapidly changing environment. It helps keep the organisation up to date with technologies and methodologies. It increases the chance of hiring the best talent. But equally importantly, it allows the organisation freedom. Freedom to expand their offerings to meet emerging customer needs. It removes constraints, conscious or unconscious. Constraints relating to the perceptions of what should be delivered. And this leads me to the situation the Open University faces now. The nature of the traditional higher education market is changing. And we now see the encroachment of technology companies into the distance/online learning sphere. Does being a university first and foremost constrain thinking about how to best address these challenges? So, that’s my question. To what extent should the Open University, and other distance learning providers, consider themselves a technology company? I’d be really interested in your views. Let me know your thoughts here, or give me a shout on Twitter @steve_p_uk

What will the ‘online’ learning of the future look like? The Internet is becoming ubiquitous to the point where it will, in the words of Eric Schmidt of Google, disappear. That’s not to say it will just trot off into the distance like ‘The Littlest Hobo’, it’s work done, looking for another adventure in another town. Not that, no. We just won’t notice it as much. In fact we’ll probably only notice it when it doesn’t work as we want it to. Allied to that, sensors, monitors and smart devices galore will find their way into every corner of our home and every aspect of our day to day life. This invasion of ‘The Internet of Things’ things has the potential to change so many aspects and interactions of our daily lives. But as this is a blog about the future of learning I’m going to jot down a few ideas I have about that. About the rise of the Smart Course. Fitting your life around learning. With traditional distance/online learning you have to create a lot of space in your life to fit in all of your learning. Something has to go in order to fit the learning in. To a certain extent you have to fit your life around your learning. Fitting learning around your life. Then came MOOCs and other shorter/self paced versions of learning, such as Udemy and FutureLearn. You can aim to fit this learning into the ‘gaps’ in your life. This is useful for those who have lives that are too busy to allow the time for studying a traditional online course. But it still requires management and motivation. Your learning fitting itself around your life. But now, the technology exists that can allow an update to how we consume our learning. Smart Courses could actively look to fit themselves around you and your life. Courses that becomes an intrinsic part of your daily experience. So what might that look like? Got a few minutes to spare? Say you find yourself with a few unexpected minutes to spare. You pick up your phone and open the app. You hit ‘learn now’ - it asks ‘how long have you got?’ - you say ‘10 mins’. It can then choose an appropriate chunk of learning to serve up for you. Perhaps a video or a quick interactive learn and test scenario like those proving very popular in Duolingo. Need help finding the time? Your course can sync with your calendar to suggest suitable times. It can learn your patterns of study and start pre-planning how your course can best progress. Want to make the most of the sunshine? Being up to date with weather forecasts, your course might suggest a little additional learning during the week as it knows you’ll want to make the most of the rare sunny weekend you’ve got coming up. Commuting? By monitoring your movement, and comparing it with public transport routes and times, your course can tell that you’re using public transport to travel into work. It also knows your expected journey time. How about a suitable bit of content to watch or listen to while you travel? Healthy body, healthy mind? A similar process could apply with exercise. It can recognise that you’re out for a run. Or if you’re a regular runner, predict when you’re going to go for a run. Again, it could suggest a suitable bit of audio for you to listen to while you pound out the miles. Or a gym. It can see that’s where you are and suggest some work out listening. Location relevant content? Knowing where you are will allow your course to feed you content relevant to that area. Visiting a museum? It can take you on a guided tour, pointing out particularly relevant exhibits. Are you in an area of historic interest? Perhaps you’d like an augmented reality view of how the area looked 100 years ago? How about helping you link up with fellow learners who happen to be nearby? All this is possible. A smart learning environment in your smart home? Your course could automatically adjust lighting and temperature in your study area when you choose to get down to some serious learning, making the environment all the more conducive to studying. Haven’t slept well? Health monitors can track this. Your course can suggest you give learning a miss this morning. How about some relaxing music instead? Really enjoyed a particular topic? Your course knows that. It also knows a related podcast has just come out and is getting a great reception. So, here you go. Some additional content. I would not like it in a gym, not on a train or in a bin… Apologies for the Dr Seuss reference, but unlike Sam I Am, your course will not force you to do things just because you have the free time. If you don’t want to learn in the gym, it will learn not to bother you. That’s not to say it won’t try and motivate you. Anyway, some of these suggestions might sound silly (like there being a sunny weekend) but they’re intended to highlight that the possibilities are endless. We can do so much more with delivery of learning. And we will. So how do you see the delivery of learning changing in the future years? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment below or give me a shout on Twitter @steve_p_uk

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The Government is introducing a Children’s e-Safety Commissioner to target online bullying, with powers to fine social media sites and force offending online posts to be taken down. Source: www.cnet.com See on Scoop.it - FootprintDigital

Web Courseworks is a learning technologies and consulting company. We recently launched a new brand that better represents its approach to doing business and emergent focus in learning IT. The new brand came to a head for Web Courseworks as we prepared for the roll-out of the new version of our LMS, CourseStage, and progression as industry leaders in the learning technologies and association managed services markets. We have been working with educational technology to improve learning since 1979 and have spent the past fifteen years focusing specifically on eLearning by providing a hosted learning management system solution, web-based collaborative authoring software, custom courses and games through the lens of a managed services approach to partnering with our clients. Part of this advancement of our identity that we are especially excited to share is this new blog dedicated to sharing insights and industry news related to association learning technology. Our goal in blogging specifically about association learning technology is to share with readers how sound strategy, technology and instructional design align in the association learning technology market for successful online education programs and how to mold each of them each to achieve that success. Our blog inspirations come from things we care about in association learning technology that also matter directly to you. We also hope to share a taste of what we’re all about and how we approach working with our clients. Get in touch with us directly at info@webcourseworks.com. The post Association Learning Technology appeared first on Web Courseworks.

Chilling with Catherine Cronin, David Kernohan and Laura Ritchie  This week I attended the OER15 conference in Cardiff. It was held in the Welsh College of Music and Drama a fabulous venue. The conference was excellent, lots of things to take away. As you might expect the online presence was really good, an excellent website, including an interactive programme and lots of people twitting. Here are some of the key highlights for me. The overarching theme of the conference was ‘taking OER mainstream’, with the point being that now we have around 15 years of OER, it is time to scale things up and look at how we can better integrate OER. Cable Green, director of global learning, was the opening keynote. He structured his talk into the following themes. First, he discussed what kind of OER infrastructure we need. He referred back to the Hewlett definition of OER and in particular the emphasis on the need for resources to reside in the public domain for free and also referred to David Wileys 5 Rs of OER (reuse revise remix redistribute retain). However, he warned against ‘open washing’, i.e. resources having the appearance of being open source, while continuing to have proprietary practices.   Second, he argued for the need for an OER value proposition, i.e. open as a tactic rather than a goal, and the move towards more open pedagogies. He suggested the following things were needed: Reduce barriers to education including access cost language and format Transforming teaching and learning and enable open practice and pedagogy Enabling free access Enhancing educational opportunities to foster development and more productive free societies Re professional teaching Connecting communities of educators Increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of public funds spend on education Introducing Internet and digital technologies into education  Third, he discuss OER research and in particularly referencing the Open University’s  OER research hub. He highlighted the following findings from OER research: 37.6 % of educators and 55.7 % of leaders say using OER improves student satisfaction New learning experience Motivational Saving money Try university content before signing up Knowing where to find OER is difficult Only 12 % use CC Fourth, he discussed the OER momentum, pointing to a number of key initiatives, such as: Opening up Slovenia, the European open edu policy project, Z degree in the States, and Josie Fraser’s work with schools in Leicester.  Fifth, he argued for the need for an OER vision, which would include  all publicly funded research to be open as default and textbooks etc. should bel free and in editable formats and available in different languages. He pointed to the work being done as part of the openpolicynetwork.org  open policy network and institute for national leadership. He argued that we need to shift to a position where OER are continuously updated by teachers and learners, and where constructivist, connectivist, open practice pedagogies dominate. He reminded us of the Cape Town and Paris OER declarations - which set out a vision for the future of OER. Finally, he suggested it was time for an OER implementation strategy, and in particular a focus on what is needed to achieve change and mainstream OER? He invited us to look at and comment on a consultation document on OER tinyurl.com/oerstrategy. Key highlights from this included: Market penetration Top strategic priorities Discovery and reuse Better communication about the value of OER OER challenges - linear rate of growth, absence of standards, insufficient awareness, difficulty of discovery and use, inconsistent breadth and doth, lack of evidence, questions about sustainability, unfulfilled promise of reuse, poor branding, perfect as an enemy of the Good, lack of OER heroes Demand - build the evidence base, improve communications, engage key constituencies, empower the grassroots, coordinate demand with supply, embed OER in the teaching profession Productisation of continent Tools for discoverability and reuse Build supply to meet demand Accessibility Open up existing platforms and resources International growth National mainstreaming Open as an aspect of digital in education Government funding Gabi Witthaus gave a presentation on our OpenCred project, commissioned by IPTS, The project developed a typology of institutional practices for the recognition of open learning in Europe. The research included desk research, six interviews with key stakeholders and analysis.  Key findings were: That there was no monolithic recognition of informal learning spectrum from no recognition to continuing professional development credits (5 levels) Three factors were identified as having the greatest impact: robustness, affordability of access, and leaners eligibility for assessment (no assessment to insist exam or RPL) Four dimensions of recognition were identified, leading to several different diamond-shaped models across different OER initiatives.   Chrissi Nerantzi described the work they were doing in her institution on open cross-institutional Continuing Professional Development. She described how they were using Wenger’s concept of a patchwork strategy (Wenger 2009) and a link to a presentation she had done on this. Josie Fraser was the second keynote, entitled ‘OER on Main Street’. She referred to the disruptive business models that have emerged as a result of OER and MOOCs. She empahsised the importance of digital literacy social inclusion and social engagement. Her role at Leicester City Council is head of technical strand of the building schools initiative. She described how she was working with 2000 staff in 23 schools across Leicester as part of the www.digilitleic.com project. She outlined two main themes that have emerged from this work:   In terms of mainstreaming, she questioned how we could do this, referring Martin Weller’s book ‘The battle for open’. She suggested that we think of mainstreaming as inclusive, valuing difference; and that the Internet is now part of everyday life. She argued that there was an ‘eternal September’ since 1993. It will never end. New people, new services and sites, overwhelming existing practises. She argued that basic digital literacy skills need to be developed. She describe how Identify gaps and strengths across the city, city level, school level and individual level. She emphasised the following aspects of OER: Finding evaluating and organising Sharing and creating She said that they had found a lot of gaps around understanding ofcopyright. Most teachers hadn’t heard of open licensing, OER or Creative Commons and many were not aware of IP issues. The positives that emerged were that there is a massive culture of informal sharing by teachers, and high quality excellent resources are being produced and built on. She suggested that there is a need to produce accessible guidance for school staff, which supports staff in understanding and making use of open licensing and creating and sharing OER. She described a set of guideline that they have produced, which consist of the following aspects: What are OER? What is the relationship between OER: legal freedom, education and participation, technical freedom? What is an open licence? How can teachers find and remix OER? How can OER be open licensed and what is the best way of sharing resources? Her definition of OER included the following: Open education community Accessibility of text Licence recommendation Legal position of staff  She said that they had found that schools were concerned with what is an open licence and how does it work?, IP and employment, and utility, control, and management. The following things emerged as important: Licence types Key questions for schools around open licensing and OER. How can we support staff in adopting more open practices. Issues: awareness and licensing agreement Students: modelling practice, curriculum opportunity, and IP rights management, The remaining two keynotes were Sheila MacNeill and Martin Weller, both excellent talks as well, but by this point I stopped taking notes and just listened. All the keynote were recorded and are available online. As usual, in addition to the formal sessions, there were lots of good discussions in the coffee breaks and at lunchtime. Next year’s conference will be held in Edinburgh. So to conclude, a great conference, lots of good papers and talks, and a lovely community.              

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You can integrate disparate technologies (such as LMS, AMS, eCommerce, and CRM) without significantly more effort than if both platforms were on the same stack. Integrating business systems still poses a challenge to CIOs, their technologists and their vendors. However, the technological barriers have decreased in recent years for a host of reasons that I describe below. In the past, ERP technologies (a category in which I would include association management systems) were often deployed on midrange hosts. Getting them to exchange information with learning management systems that were based on client/server architectures required leveraging cumbersome and specialized technologies like EDI. As LMS technology has matured, it has become easier to achieve LMS integration, which benefits not only the learners, but also the business users who provision students and report on their progress. When choosing an LMS technology, a committee might think an add-on learning management module from their AMS vendor is a safer choice. Or they might think a learning management system with the same technological pedigree (LAMP stack, .NET framework, Java, etc.) is safer. In both cases, the "safe" choice may forego a rich set of capabilities that would be available on a standalone LMS application from a specialized competitor. The seemingly conservative approach may also prove to be the most expensive: not only are add-on modules expensive, but they are notoriously difficult to customize, and paying a vendor to re-build features available in another LMS just because the other LMS is based on the "wrong" technology stack would be expensive and unnecessary. In short, concerns about LMS integration should not lead an association to choose an LMS that is a poor match with business requirements. Single sign-on One of the most crucial points of LMS integration from the perspective of learners is having single sign-on (SSO) implemented. SSO simplifies the user experience and minimizes irritating support requests for lost passwords. Implementing SSO on mixed platforms has become straightforward over the last few years, leveraging the capabilities of ActiveDirectory and LDAP. Even with cloud vendors, achieving a seamless login experience can be made straightforward through the use of authentication portals that use web service APIs or OpenID. Designating systems of record in an LMS integration When integrating an LMS with existing business systems, a key consideration is maintaining systems of record rather than having similar data residing as multiple instances. Learner information can be accessed directly from the AMS, and transcript data (who took what course, when, and for how many credits) should have a single final resting place. When data is copied to multiple systems, asynchronies will develop that reduce the business value of the data, and also can cause support issues. Data formatting standards such as XML and JSON have simplified this flow of information, and services such as SOAP and REST have standardized the mechanism. Developing a plan to identify systems of record and then leverage APIs to use them will lead to a solid, low-maintenance LMS integration. Third party web applications Not surprisingly, there are numerous opportunities to make use of cloud-based services, such as eCommerce platforms to charge learners, or webinar packages that provide opportunities for live training and collaboration between instructors and students. Cloud vendors drive their business development by making integration portals available and easy to implement, so these ancillary features are easily incorporated into an LMS integration, whether they are hosted in your data center or with a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. Business requirements first LMS implementations are important. They can educate association members and staff (which can reduce costs and liabilities), and, just as importantly, they can drive revenue in association business models. When selecting a new LMS platform, be sure to understand your business requirements first. The technological requirements, especially those that require LMS integration to your existing application portfolio, can come later, knowing that data exchange has become far easier to accomplish. The post Cross-platform LMS Integration Strategies appeared first on Web Courseworks.