1. A Framework for Designing an Online
Educational Service
1
With space, time, content and context ceasing to be
barriers, education is entering a new era.
Prof. Bala Iyer, Babson College
@BalaIyer
May 17, 2013

2. Seen this before?
During the 1920s and 1930s, several land-grant universities offered
extension courses and home-study courses over the radio airwaves.
During the growth of television in the 1950s, CBS, in partnership with
New York University, broadcast full college courses at 6 a.m. in
its Sunrise Semester series. The first class, a comparative literature
course, enrolled 177 for-credit students; another 120,000 people took
it without credit. (CBS cancelled Sunrise Semester in 1982)
2

3. Agenda
What is blended learning?
Stakeholders
Framework
Governance
What can companies do?
List of programs
3

4. 4
Our belief is that deep, radical and urgent transformation is
required in higher education as much as it is in school systems.
Our fear is that, perhaps as a result of complacency, caution or
anxiety, or a combination of all three, the pace of change is too
slow and the nature of change too incremental.'

5. 5
Classroom lectures has been the dominant model for
educational instruction for the last 500 years

6. 6
Education suffers from the “cost disease.” Technology
and wage increases aside, the price of education is on a
rocket course, with no levelling in sight.

7. 7
Outstanding student loans ($914b) bigger than credit card and
auto loans.
Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends presentation 2013

8. 8
Students have 10 to 18 minutes of optimal focus during a 90 min. lecture.
Then there would come a lapse. Attention would eventually return, but falls “to three- or
four-minute [spurts].
Salman Khan

9. 9
Education development and delivery has to become
more personalized

10. 10
Blended learning has the potential to make education
more personalized

11. 11
Architects of blended learning environments have to make
many design choices to make
We explore those choices here….

12. Blended Learning
 The combination of different learning delivery tools and teaching and learning models
to create rich, adaptive, and meaningful learning experiences
 The integration of face-to-face and online learning to help enhance the classroom
experience and extend learning through the innovative use of information and
communications technology. Blended strategies enhance student engagement and
learning through online activities to the course curriculum, and improve effectiveness
and efficiencies by reducing lecture time.
12
Potential Aspects:
Face to Face Instruction
Online Asynchronous Discussions
Web Conferencing tools
Mobile applications
Simulations and games
Social media integration
Rich Media (audio and video)

13. 13
Source: Mathieu Plourde, “MOOC, every letter is negotiable”

14. Blended Learning Approach: Summary of Learnings
Benefits
 Pedagogical richness (shifting from a
presentational format to active learning)
 Greater access to personalized learning, to
resources and experts; Greater flexibility;
 Greater accommodation for learners and
teachers of diverse backgrounds;
 Increased interaction and sense of
community; and
 Increased cost-effectiveness (e.g., reduced
seat time, decreased costs)
14
Source: Issues in Digital Technology in Education/Blended Learning
Challenges
 Administrative challenges (lack of
awareness, policies, plans, goals, support
related to blended learning),
 Re-designing courses and/or programs,
 Faculty preparedness, and
 Quality assurance
Critical Success Factors
-Peer to peer interaction
-Integration with workflow
-Teacher engagement
-Quality of material
-Analytics
-Social network and archives

15. Stakeholder Analysis
Online Platform
Student
Teacher/
facilitator
Platform
provider Sponsor
Social
constructivism
Innovative
Pedagogy/Impact
Rich
engagement
Institutional
ROI
Value Proposition
Content
provider
Re-usable
Content
15

16. 16

17. Framework for Making Design Choices
 Context
 Educational Model
Students
Content
Community
Delivery and Learner Support
Training
 Online Platform
 Business Model/Revenue Model
 Governance
 Measurement and Evaluation: Assessment and Credentialing
17

18. Context (1): Key Themes Learned
Cultural:
 Cultural attitude towards learning in the target population
 Differences by learner’s age or gender
 Taboos regarding learning
 Cultural attitude towards the technological aspects of e-learning
 Socially/culturally accepted/preferred learning styles
Regulatory Situation
 Regulatory situation regarding information, communication and technology
 Access to set up/obtain electronic services
 Censorship in place regarding information and communication
Skills
 Skill-sets to address the learning goals
 Need for identification of required skills and plan for development
 Plan to design, develop and deliver the solutions
Source: Implications of the Local Context in Global Distance Education
by Rye and Stokken, University of Agder, Norway] 18
“Student’s daily environments are important for helping determine how well
students perform and participate in online education”*

19. Context (2): Key Themes Learned
Material Factors
 Existing learning delivery infrastructure
 Desired technical environment given the stated goals
 Access of target audience to technology
 Relevant M&E metrics
 Necessary environment/features (if any) required to address the agreed upon goals
 Technical standards defined for training, design and development
Internationalization
 Degree of formality/informality defining the interaction in the synchronous e-learning setup
 Amount of conflict tolerable during group debates and forums
 Role of personal opinion as opposed to group opinion
 Role of teachers or trainers in facilitation
 Preferred interface in each country (computer-human interface or human-human
interface or human-materials interface)
 Cultural acceptance of use of webcam – gender differences
 Gendered approach to teaching: Males teaching women?
19
Source: Issues in Internationalization of education: The case of a Danish Business School exporting a
blended learning MBA program to developing countries.

20. Educational Model: Students
Enrollment/profile
 Selection process
 Preferred Demographics
 Language of instruction
 Geographical focus
 Charged Or sponsored
Participation
Four groups of participants:
 those who completed most assignments,
 those who audited,
 those who gradually disengaged and
 those who sporadically sampled.
20
Key finding: high correlation
between “completing learners” and
participation on forum pages; the
more students interacted with others
on the forum page, the better they
learned. [Lytics Lab link]

21. Educational Model: Content
Structure
 Guidelines and methodologies in place for designing and developing content
 Content listed in categories and subcategories
 Approach to conent: Learning object (like PBS) or modular objects (FastTrack) or
videos (TEDx) or discussion boards
 Single or multiple source(s) of content
Quality
 Ranking of content, e.g. top selling or recent additions
 Featuring content for more attention
 User rated content
 Expert rating content
 Keyword search capability
 Materials used for accreditation/certification meet professional
standards/qualifications?
 Formal quality procedures, such as ISO 9001 in place
21

22. Educational Model: Content
Intellectual Property
 Localization of content
 Adaptation to local realities by partnering
 Owner of content -- Third-party, company or user
 Agreed upon and shared terms and conditions?
 Decisions:
 Authors using their own End User Licensing Agreement (EULA)
 Platform owner dictating the EULA?
 Authors using Open Source guideline
 Owners charging for the content?
22

23. Educational Model: Community
 Status of curated community
 Status of moderator role
 One large community versus indexed by cohorts
 Types of networks
 Developmental and/or social
 Personal learning networks
 Membership: Inclusion of facilitator/faculty
 M&E: Community analytics
23
Two Cheers for Web U! Link

24. Educational Model: Delivery
 Synchronous and/versus asynchronous
 Pedagogical model as experiential, lecture, simulation, games or case-based
 Content delivered face to face by partners
 Blend of distance learning and Face-to-face
 Use of partners
 Emphasis on train the trainers (critical aspect)
24

25. Content Delivery
25
All running Android
Command and Control
Adopt and Extend
Marketplace

26. Learner Support
Options for the provision of support services:
 Technology and business wrap-around
 Call center?
 Peer to peer?
 KMS/LMS
 Moderated discussion boards
 Trained facilitators, advisors, mentors
26
*Source: Massive open online courses as new educative practice. George Siemens. 2012

27. What is a platform?
A business platform is a set of capabilities used by multiple parties that
 Has “options” value
 Creates Network Effects
 Has explicit Architectural Control Points
 A product or service should perform at least one essential function within
what can be described as a “system of use” or solve an essential
technological problem within an industry, and
 It should be easy to connect to or build upon to expand the system of use as
well as to allow new and even unintended end-uses*
27*Source: Platform Leaders by Gawer and Cusumano, MIT Sloan Management
Review, Winter 2008]

28. Platform Concept
Platform
Students
Complementors
Accreditors, Mentoring, Analytics
Call centers, trainers
Teachers/facilitators
Bid for revenue Support development
Search for information
Content developers
Sponsor
Community
EngagementQuality content
28

29. Online Platform: Has to support…..
 Students– Enrollment, target
 Development
 Content
 Community
 Delivery
 Usability
 Learner support
 Training
 Student Assessment & credentialing
 Outcomes
29

30. Platform: Usability and Development
Possibilities
 Does the platform recommend content for users?
 Can content can be given meta data by authors?
 Can content can be piloted/previewed before using?
 Can content can be sorted by reviews?
 Can content can be filtered by device compatibility?
 Do you provide a list of all courses subscribed by student?
 Does platform provide metrics by user and by course?
 Can owners check course quality?
 Will users be permitted to review courses?
 How long does user have access to content?
30
Development Decisions:
-Make, buy or rent?
-Single player or consortium?
-Open or closed?

31. Usability: Key Themes Learned
Student Feedback
 Each course with own support forum
 Opportunity for users to leave suggestions for new courses and make suggestions for
improvements
 Opportunity for users to create user profiles
 Ability for users to share course performance on social media
Authors
 Authors to track analytics through an API
 Plan for deployment/dedication of authors to countries
 Profile pages for authors
 Courses sorted by authors
31

32. Training: One of the most critical pieces
Teachers and Facilitators
 Core curriculum
 Blended learning strategies
 Content provider
 Content development
32
Teachers and students lack the necessary cognitive skills for
making effective use of online technologies
Pedagogical and Design Aspects of a Blended Learning Course, Karen Precel, Yoram
Eshet-Alkalai, and Yael Alberton, IRRODL, Vol. 10 No. 2 (2009)
Source

33. Measurement and Evaluation
Evaluation
 Specific M&E plan
 Timeline
 Participants
 Process for action on feedback
 How do we define success?
Number of students
Mentoring relationships developed
New businesses started
Revenues increased
Level of engagement
Social network
33

34. Business Model
 Revenue model
 Cost structure
 Key partners
 Key resources
 Key activities
34

35. Some Revenue Models
Information Business
 Matching students with employers
 Advertising
Complementary Goods
 Books, discussion boards, proctoring, certification, authentic assessment, screening
 Tutoring,
Licensing content to schools
 Freemium
 Tuition
 Self-service --Renting platform as a learning management system
 Production assistance – design help
 Funding from foundations
Sources : How EdX Plans to Earn, and Share, Revenue From Its Free Online Courses by Steve
Kolowich, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb 21, 2013
What Campus Leaders Need to Know About MOOCs, An EDICAUSE educational briefing.
35

36. Types of Investments
36
 Technical
 e.g., videography, editing, graphic design
 Instructional
 e.g., instructional design, teaching assistant support
 Library
 e.g., resource discovery, copyright clearance

37. Costs of Blended Learning
One Time Periodic Recurring
 Bandwidth & Wireless/
Wired Connectivity
 Furniture
 Power Access (laptop
Carts and/or wired
outlets)
 Design & Implementation
 Consulting Services
 Initial Professional
Development/ R&D
 Quality Control & Admin
 Technology Devices
 Headphones and
 Other Accessories
 Training
 Licenses for Digital
 Content & Tools
 Licenses for HLMS
Or Other Integrated
Platform
 Blended Learning
Lead/Coach
 Increased IT Support or
IT Lead
 Marketing/Sales
37
Source: Educational Elements: Blended Learning on a Budget Education Elements, Inc. January 2013

38. Example Cost Structure: edX
 edX will collect the first $50,000 generated by a course, or
$10,000 for each recurring course. The organization and the
university partner will each get 50 percent of all revenue
beyond that threshold.
 edX charges a base rate of $250,000 for each new course, plus
$50,000 for each time a course is offered for an additional term
38

39. Measurement and Evaluation
Evaluation
 Specific M&E plan
 Timeline
 Participants
 Process for action on feedback
 How do we define success?
Number of students
Mentoring relationships developed
New businesses started
Revenues increased
Level of engagement
Social network
39

40. Assessment and Credentialing
 Policy on assessment and/or credentialing?
 Use of automated (Udacity) support
 Provision of Peer to Peer assessment?
 Instructor evaluation
 Third party assessment?
 Certificate upon completion
 Possibility of badges (StackExchange)/credentialing for
tracking progress
40

41. Governance: Themes Learned
 Need to be managed like any large project
 A governance group represented by each stakeholder
 Policies and guidelines
 Principles based decision making
 Key decisions must be approved by this group
 The rationale for each decision must be captured
 Track CSFs
 Learn and publish best practices
 Focus on people and process
41

42. What can companies do?
Level 1: Provide customized educational programs to
support a mission
Level 2: Develop generalized internal training programs to
train the trainers
Level 3: Provide formal educational programs to third
parties for self-service
Level 4: Work with third parties to develop educational
programs to support their mission
Level 5: participate in communities of interest that build
their own training program
42

43. Programs
 Yentels - Young European Entrepreneurs E-Learning Suite - www.yentels.com/ (Europe)
 Cisco Entrepreneur Institute - http://ciscoinstitute.net/ (provider is http://elientrepreneur.com/about.html) (Global)
 Dubai Chamber e-Learning Program for Entrepreneurs - http://www.dubaichamber.com/news/dubai-chamber-
launches-e-learning-programme-for-entrepreneurs
 MINDSET - Kaufmann Foundation Entrepreneurship Course - http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/kauffman-
foundation-supported-online-entrepreneurship-learning-curriculum-launches-today.aspx (provider
is http://elientrepreneur.com/about.html) (Latin America, Asia)
 EO [Entrepreneurs Organization] Bootcamp - http://eobootcamp.co.za/ (South Africa)
 Women European Entrepreneurs e-Learning suite - http://www.wentels.com/projectYoung Entrepreneurs Program
Start Up Lab - https://theyec.org/startuplab/ (Europe)
 ELFE - E-Learning for Female Entrepreneurs - http://www.iwi.hs-karlsruhe.de/entrepreneurs/ (Europe)
 e-Learning for Entrepreneurs - Small Business Development Center - http://www.nhsbdc.org/e-Learning-
entrepreneurs (NH)
 HP Life E-learning - http://www.life-global.org/en/LEARN-ONLINE/HP-Life-e-Learning (Global)
 Black Enterprise Small Business University - sponsored by Dell!! -
http://www.blackenterprise.com/sbu/2012/03/17/sbu-2012-contest/ (US)
 Afriversity, the meeting place for African Entrepreneurs - http://www.afriversity.org/ (Africa)
 Turning on Mobile Learning in Africa and the Middle East (MEA)
43

44. More programs
 The Yoza Cellphone Stories project in South Africa (South Africa)
 The MoMath project in South Africa
 WOMEN’S DIALOG AND DISTANCE LEARNING:A University in the Arab World Link
44

45. Program brief (1)
Program Market Sponsors Notes
Yentels Europe Leonardo
Programme
Free, games, knowledgebase
CEI Global Cisco, partners Franchise model
Dubai Chamber UAE Cisco CEI Online courses in English
EO South Africa GetSmarter,
Western Cape
Local Govt
Learn from entrepreneurs
WENTELS Europe Six partners Focus on women, serious games
NHSBDC NH Public service of
NH, AT&T
Courses and mentoring
45

46. Program brief (2)
Program Market Sponsors Notes
HP-LIFE 49 countries, 1.2
million trained
HP, EDC,
UNIDO, ORT
Franchise model and online
Small Business
University
Black Enterprise Dell Prize money for engagement
Afriversity Afrpreneurs Company
sponsors, partners
Crowdfunding for entrepreneurs
MoMath South Africa, 25,000
learners, 500
teachers, 172 schools
Nokia, SA Govt. Text-based 10,000 math
exercises
46

47. Questions
47