This is the revised version of the earlier paper, updated in the light of input at EIF2012 during and after the workshop on the topic. Now awaiting further refinement at ALT-C
Mixin Classes in Odoo 17 How to Extend Models Using Mixin Classes
Alternative archetypes of formal education provision
1. Alternative models of (formal)
education delivery – update
– the “final five” (?) models
codified after the workshop at EIF 2012 Granada
Paul Bacsich
Matic Media Ltd
Sero Consulting Ltd
Canterbury Visiting Fellow 2012
3. What is IITE?
• UNESCO Institute for Information Technologies
in Education
• Based in Moscow, Russia
• “contribute to the design and implementation
of the programmes of the Organization in
regard to application of information and
communication technologies in education”
EFQUEL Innovation Forum 3
4. Requirement from IITE
• “Alternative models of education delivery for
the formal education system”
– Primary, secondary, tertiary (HE and non-HE)
4 EFQUEL Innovation Forum
5. Paul requires Models to be…
• Compelling IT-enabled archetypes
• Generalisable
• Scalable
• Sustainable
• Deployable in a variety of socio-economic
situations in the more developed countries and
regions (of countries)
• Deliverable within current operational technology
5 EFQUEL Innovation Forum
8. Virtual schools
• Plentiful in North America
• Significant in Australasia, Asia and Latin America; less so
in Africa and island regions
• Surprisingly many in Europe despite restrictions
• Effective and seemingly cost-effective
• “Universities and researchers should consider why virtual
schools in EU have been set up easily and cheaply in
techno-pedagogic terms, yet EU universities mostly
struggle to deliver substantial distance learning and insist
on doing large numbers of pilots and studies before
making choices” (Bacsich, EDEN 2012)
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9. Virtual universities
• Prevalent in all continents
• Many US universities also have virtual provision –
likewise in Australia – yet this ubiquity is not
replicated in Europe (Bacsich et al, Re.ViCa passim)
• And single-mode VUs remain minority and isolated
players in most host countries; balanced dual-mode
players seem unstable in the longer term, whether
for internal, regulatory (“quality”, “effektivity”
*sic+, “throughput”) or technological reasons
• And cost savings seem elusive
9 EFQUEL Innovation Forum
11. Quality
• Dangerous in an EFQUEL forum to make broad
statements, but…
– Hard to judge
– Students, governments and universities seduced by false
proxies (e.g. price, research ranking)
– Overtones of politics and the established social consensus –
the new and strange are feared – for-profits, universities of
applied sciences, out-of-country providers etc
– Partly codifiable (even in the non-e world) provided one is
not obsessive about it
– Increasingly has multinational overtones
– Good teaching can be recognised (to some extent)
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12. Cost
• Surprisingly little advance in costing
methodologies in the educational system –
even in the non-e world
• In the e-world it may even be going backward
since the work of the late 1990s
• Surprisingly little recognition that the costs of
education are (a) too high and (b) can be
reduced (also Bates, at EFQUEL 2012)
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13. Time
• “strangely under-examined in the literature of
e-learning” (Goodyear, 2006)
• Obsession with study hours not only with
teaching hours
• Very slow moves towards competency models
despite over 10 years of WGU
• The Bane of Bologna (banes,actually) and
their friends living in schools
• Very little theoretical research re learning
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15. The archetypes must be:
• Compelling
• Generalisable
• Scalable
• Sustainable
• Deployable
• Deliverable
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16. And not politically infeasible
• So consider for each potential archetype its
• Advantages
• Disadvantages
• Implications for how current policies would
have to be changed
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18. 1. Virtual supplementary school
• Focus on uniform high-quality provision of university-
entrance subjects across the nation
– E.g. Maths, Physics, Computer Science, Latin
• State-funded
• Each pupil has host physical school
• Existence proof: US, Scotland, virtual schools for expats
• Advantages?
• Disadvantages?
• Policy shift: need per-course not per- pupil school
funding - feasible
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19. 2. Handheld Primary
• Each pupil gets a handheld with age-related capabilities
• Teaching is focussed round it – still with teachers – but not
teaching the same way
• Low-cost fee-paying school providing excellent quality
provision in middle-income economies
• Socialises children into appropriate use of IT
• Existence proof: many low-cost private schools but with no
IT
• Advantages?
• Disadvantages?
• Policy shift: real acceptance that private education has a
role; move to public/private school system
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20. 3. OER C (=college)
• Massive use of OER (if relevant) and automated and peer
assessment to deliver “trade” qualifications at low cost but with
international or vendor certification
• Finesses the HE quality issue but still targets those skills demanded
by employers
• Regime to ensure acceptance by regular correlation of approach
with test results
• Existence proof: A number of start-ups targeting the “lucrative” HE
market but making it hard for themselves by challenging or ignoring
the quality police (both strategies unwise)
• Advantages?
• Disadvantages?
• Policy shift: really just needs governments to admit that non-HE
post-secondary exists as a viable sector – and to “care for it”
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21. 4. Multeversity (Bacsich, 2011)
• Broad-spectrum yet full university range of work/features
• Multi-mode according to student demand: pure DL, hybrid
e/f2f, traditional f2f+e (if really justified); multi-site if need be
• Highly cost-aware yet transparent to clients
• Covers polytechnic (university of applied science, university
college) and post-secondary college areas synergistic (Cisco
Academy, fashion design)
• Bridges into and from upper secondary school, so as to minimise
drop-out and “lock on” to schools-level knowledge
• Generates “liberal arts” thinkers who are "(e-)business-ready"
• Links with international partners to lobby governments & set up
transnational quality regimes to finesse ranking & price snobbery
• Joins with other universities and employer groups to oversee
school-leaving exams in an international perspective on
qualifications after school (IBac) and university (HE Olympiads?)
• Scholarship compulsory, research optional (and not subsidised)
EFQUEL Innovation Forum 21
22. 4. Multeversity discussion
• Advantages?
• Disadvantages?
• Policy shift: governments need to:
– get away from research as a proxy for
teaching quality
– get real about what the impending open access
regime means for nationally bound university-
industry links
– governments without a national final-exam
system for schools may struggle to implement it
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23. 5. eOxbridge
• Related themes:
– Freshmen researchers
– Problem-based learning
– Accelerated learning for gifted and talented
– All-through Masters (3 years in England, 4 elsewhere?)
• Focus on the campus as the core but not the only
locus of discourse – “near-distance learning”
• Specialised institutions “research colleges” with
common support operation – “shared service” to
reduce costs without impacting differentiation
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24. References
• Time and e-learning -
http://www.scribd.com/doc/96397285/Time-
Bacsich-Final-Final-PDF)
• The VISCED Colloquium for Virtual Schools -
http://www.virtualschoolsandcolleges.info/visced
-colloquium-for-virtual-schools
• Growing the OER u -
http://toucansproject.wordpress.com/2012/04/1
6/growing-the-oeru-a-pre-conference-workshop-
at-cambridge-2012/
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