Excerpt "Before long, [Scott McNeally] claimed, the whole bloated, expensive, lecture-based higher education system will face the first challenge to its very existence: open-source, online higher education that costs a fraction of four years at Harvard—but is good enough for employers who want a college graduate." - Seb Schmoller from Bookmarklet

Much more likely to happen effectively in FE / community college education first where the duration is significantly less than 3/4 years and he level of synthesis required is less. It's also the sector that requires more flexible learning models, so that's ok then, but I would say that I guess - Dick Moore

I shall not (yet) get into a discussion of what might happen in HE sector in the UK. But is worth note that some well thought of HE institutions already have a form of open access for distinguished lectures. For example Yale http://oyc.yale.edu/ amongst others. This, I take it, is designed to attract potential students to that university. In the UK at the moment there is a move to try to attract 'foreign' (non-EU) students because of the high fees they bring in. How good an education they will receive by traditional (f2f) modes compared with on-line teaching is not discussed. The move is to bring in money regardless. And with UK students facing still higher fees, who knows what will happen, in even 2 years time. - Brian Whalley

Copied and pasted from the 24/9/2009 eLearning Resources and News from George Siemens "I am a strong proponent in advocating for universities to change. But, universities are systems. You can't alter one aspect without creating a ripple effect of unintended consequences. As I read another article about another business leader [Scott McNeally] declaring the obsolescence of universities (a Latin phrase meaning "to scale Mt. Idiocy"), I started thinking about how absurd this language would sound if we applied it to other large institutions. Let's try banks: "Banks are obsolete because they were founded in an industrial era mindset" (they weren't, but neither was teaching, so misinformation works here too) "Banks are too bloated. They can't survive. They need to completely change in order to meet the needs of today's world" "Now that we have the internet, people won't need banks anymore" (don't worry if it doesn't make sense...As Meister Mt Scaler Tapscott has proven, accuracy can be subverted by sensationalism). "People no longer need money, they'll just share everything online" ...and the list could go on. Try it - pick your own favorite industry. You too can play the game!" - Seb Schmoller