I Made An Embarrassing Prediction

HOT READS FOR THE PRACTITIONER

Title: The Rise and Fall of the Traditional University

Competency:  self-development, coaching, performance management

Who benefits: age 10 and above

Consultant Usage: regardless of your specialty, if you are not on board with this concept, now is the time

What’s it about? About 2 months ago I wrote the definitive article on MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).  I was so proud of myself.  Today I feel embarrassed.  I made bold predictions for the future.  Just watch I said.  Over the next one to five years you are going to see all kinds of advances.  Piffle!  Here is the embarrassing part: As I write this most of those predictions have already happened or are in advanced stages.

Why should you care?  Two extremely important reasons:  First, the entire institution of higher learning is being shaken to its core.  If you don’t know this, you are not paying attention.  Don’t take it personally.  Higher education itself is in denial. The value and importance of a university degree is being questioned.

Second, how supervisors and managers perform their talent management duties (attract, train, retain) and especially how they coach employees is likely to change dramatically.  Read on to discover why.

As to the first point, disruptive innovation, I beg you to read this short (3 minute) article by the extremely well respected Michael Horn and Clayton Christensen.  In very lay terms, these guys know what they speak: Beyond the Buzz, Where Are MOOCs Really Going? .  Below is a quote from their opening paragraphs:

“The question is not just whether MOOCs are going to disrupt traditional education, but how. Is it just about lower costs and access? Is it really going to be a Napster-like moment with entrenched ‘Teamsters in tweed’ worried about the erosion of their research, publishing, and teaching?

This is where we can leave the realm of hype and commentary to draw on our own years of research into disruption theory. Because the curious thing about the MOOC wave of disruption is that the market leaders — not just upstarts from the edges — are the ones pioneering it. And that rarely happens.”

In a few weeks I will review Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson’s newish book Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. One of her key points is that change happens so fast these days there is no longer time to separate learning time from doing time.  They need to happen simultaneously.  MOOCs to the rescue!

In the (near) future companies will contract with MOOCs to deliver just-in-time learning.  Your work assignment will come with a corresponding MOOC assignment.

In the hiring process the university degree is likely to suffer a major devaluation.  Recruiters will be seeking people with very specific knowledge.  “Apply for our position(s) if you have taken the following MOOC courses or classes….”   “Harvard degree.  That’s nice but have you taken these four MOOC classes?  No, okay, come back and talk to us when you have.” Or “You have taken the recommended MOOC classes.  Good.  No degree – no problem.”

It is a new world in education.  Now let’s look at what has happened in the past few weeks.

My favorite MOOC, Coursera, added 29 new universities, nearly doubling the number of universities in fold.  But in this instance that isn’t what it is impactful.  The big change was that many of these newly added universities are from other countries and in their own language.  Coursera is now in 15 different countries and courses are available in at least 5 different languages.

I am particularly thrilled for my Spanish speaking friends who soon can be taking top of the line classes from the prestigious Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and the IE Business School and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Spain

The other major addition announced the arrival of college credit.  I thought this was years off, but it is here now on a small scale.  Now we know how it will work.  If you want college credit at your institution, you will likely have to pay for 3 fees, each in the $70-$100 range.  You will pay a proctor fee for your final test, an accreditation fee for your course credits, and a university fee that will be charged by you university or college.  All told the charges are in arena of $250, which is still reasonably cheap when compared to the normal charge for 3 or 4 unit courses in respected institutions.  It is not cheap for those in third world or poverty conditions.

One good thing – the classes are still free if you don’t want or can’t afford the credit.

There is also the age old debate “Does Size Matter?”.  In this case yes.  In less than 14 months 2.7 million people have enrolled in classes.  One forecaster has said that in 10 years it is possible that 1 billion (with a B) people will enroll in MOOC classes.  I think this data is likely inflated.  My guess is that most of us are counted more than once.  For instance, I have enrolled in four classes (so far!) and am probably therefore counted four times.  In each of my classes there have been well over 100,000 participating.  Any way you slice it, it is huge and growing at unimaginable rates.

I will have much more to say next week.  Stay tuned!

Catch you later.

Bill Bradley

Bill Bradley (mostly) retired after 35 years in organizational consulting, training and management development. During those years he worked internally with seven organizations and trained and consulted externally with more than 90 large and small businesses, government agencies, hospitals and schools.