A digital eruption is hitting higher education. The expectations of learners have been transformed irrevocably. Vast quantities of free educational resources are available online, and learners of all ages are becoming more and more sophisticated at using them. If and when they arrive on campus, they expect an experience that students could never have imagined even 10 years ago – an experience that fully embraces technology and is truly mobile.
Whenever a new technology arrives, some people are afraid it will mean the wholesale destruction of all that has gone before. During the 15 years I worked at the BBC, I saw that fear: that the internet would mean the end of traditional radio stations, the end of traditional television stations. Of course it didn't. But it has fundamentally altered them, and in the same way the internet will transform campus-based education – but it won't destroy it.
FutureLearn CEO Simon Nelson
Some aspects of university education can never be delivered purely by online means: student life inculcates a whole range of skills of which the things you learn in class are only a small part. But the internet may well sweep away the things that can be better delivered online.
If – and it's a big if – universities are prepared to make the often difficult and radical changes the digital age requires, they will be rewarded with unparalleled opportunities to transform what they have been doing throughout their history. Teaching and learning will become more effective as teachers adopt new techniques and technologies, and learners are put more in control of what they learn, and when, how and where they learn it.
It is now possible to reach a vastly greater number of people than would have been able to learn at a university in the past. One of the things we are most excited about at FutureLearn is the ability to unlock the talent and creativity previously held within university walls and open it up to people all over the world.
We should embrace opportunities, not fear change. I would question anyone's ability to predict exactly where universities will be in 10 or 20 years' time, but I am confident that while a future university will still be recognisably a university, it will live and breathe in manifold new ways that stretch far beyond its physical limitations.