Tertiary education online requires further study and thinking

One of the main problems for staff comes from the "unbundling" of the academic role. Most courses are developed within team structures that separate curriculum development, materials design, learning support and assessment. Some institutions contract the work out to casual labour with little continuity and stability for the student. There are pedagogical concerns about separating the integrated teaching role of academic staff. Part of the quality assurance framework depends upon the teacher being involved at all levels – curriculum, delivery and assessment.

Of equal concern is the impact that these new technologies have on staff workloads, rising to dangerous levels as student/staff ratios continue to climb. Many staff report that it is expected that their courses will be placed online, that little if any training accompanies such expectations, and that time and space differentials attached to global Internet delivery have raised student demands for more immediate responses from staff. Our members at Central Queensland University continually raise problems in relating to students in Dubai who expect to speak with staff at 2-3am Australian time.

Intellectual property

University staff own the copyright attached to their course materials. In the on-line environment, these are easy to commodify once translated into packaged materials. Some university administrations assert that copyright should now be shared since university infrastructure and skills have been added to create the online course. Others encourage staff to sell or otherwise assign their copyright. Once bought, the university can do what it likes to the content, and controls returns to the academic. The University of Phoenix pays staff a flat fee for each video class with no royalties for a repeat or relayed broadcast. This contrasts with contract conditions in other industries, such as entertainment.

The TRIPS agreement binds WTO nations to ensure some standardization of intellectual property rights to facilitate trade in knowledge. Interestingly, while it calls upon member nations to observe the defence of copyright in literary and artistic works contained in the Bern convention, it makes an exception in the case of moral rights. Moral rights exist separate from ownership, and include the rights of the originator to be attributed, and to object to any distortion of his or her work that may have a detrimental impact on his or her honour and reputation. In an on-line environment, where teaching and learning materials are packaged and re-packaged for sale and their use is difficult to track, we may need to seek some international agreement on the moral rights of originators within the e-university.

Consortia partnerships

Higher education has long been internationalised – faculty links across the globe, often on a discipline basis, have nurtured intellectual work, fostered the broad public interest in research and sponsored staff and student exchanges. More recently, institutions have joined together to offer students across the world an opportunity to study online, choosing courses from among the many offered by a variety of consortia. From this perspective, such developments may have many positive advantages. However, not all such partnerships are in the public interest – rather the motive for some ventures seems to be to maximise profits, for both the universities involved and the private companies.

One such venture is Universitas 21 (U21), a consortium of 18 universities from Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, that originally sought partnerships with News Limited and Microsoft, and is now close to finalising a deal with North American media giant Thomson Corporation. Australian universities involved are Melbourne, UNSW, and Queensland.

The U21 venture raises important issues about the new models of global delivery, and brings into focus the sharp end of the corporatisation of higher education. Under the proposed deal Thomson Corporation will be responsible for course design, content development, testing and assessment and student database management and translation. The universities will licence their "brand names", receiving money for allowing the crests of their institutions to be used by the new international institution. The universities are not selling their courses; rather it is their reputation that seems up for sale.

The venture uses a complicated companies structure to insulate U21 from public scrutiny. Academics are to be renamed as course developers, instructors and assessors and will be contracted by U21 Global through a tender process. U21 will be registered in Singapore where activities of trade unions are highly circumscribed. There has also been considerable concern over the likely dominance of the for-profit company, Thomson, in ownership of the new consortium. Initially, courses on offer will be postgraduate programs in e-commerce, business administration and information systems.

Little is known of the way intellectual property will be protected, nor can we be guaranteed that information as to the activities of U21 Global will be reported back to the university communities that are subsidising this for-profit venture. On a cost-benefit basis, the "public university" may be losing out.

Can Quality be maintained?

When institutions see online courses as a way forward in the current cash-strapped environment, we need to have confidence in quality assurance processes that will ensure that online courses meet academic standards expected by the student, employers and the community. Australia has a high-quality reputation, and our graduates are accepted in countries around the world. This reputation must be sustained in an online future.

Accreditation and quality processes lie with governments, government agencies or are specified in regional agreements for cross-accreditation. The new global online environment will attract new ventures aiming to cash in on the latest "for profit" industry, with, at times, questionable commitment to educational standards or to public accountability. Both overseas and here we have seen quite spectacular failures of firms involved in English teaching, postgraduate business administration areas, and early "virtual" universities. The Chronicle of Higher Education in the US urges caution towards education.com companies operating in a volatile share market.

In order to sustain the new online learning environment, staff, students and the community will need to have confidence in its quality. Staff can deliver quality online courses as part of a broad mix of learning environments, as long as adequate resources accompany these developments and the public interest is maintained.