Blog of Online Course Development

I am working on a project to develop a new online course so I thought it might be useful both to me and to others to write a blog of the experience. I have had a number of unpleasant experiences developing online materials in the past so I hope that this time the project will be less painful and more productive. There are no promises that it will be a smooth ride but hopefully there will be some interesting lessons.

More degree inflation

I missed this on Wednesday but at least I caught up with it today. Manchester Metropolitan got caught this time.

This is what you get when you put a league table system in place and where the system is self-assessing. There is no choice but to make sure you get the best results. As someone commented the league tables might as well reward those who fail most as they must have the highest standards. If you are going to have league tables then you would need an external nationally accredited exam system. There was something like this under the old polytechnic system where they had national degrees, but universities are awarding institutions each with their own standards. The only thing that maintains these standards is academic integrity, which tends to be undermined with short-term contracts and threats from university bureaucrats to which standards, integrity and ethics do not apply.

There is a lot going on.

It is that time of year when everything happens. I have been reviewing the MSc programme that I am currently responsible for and also trying to get on top of my reading and my ideas for the Diploma in Learning and Teaching. So now I hopefully will be able to post more frequently at least until the conference and holiday season begin (so in two weeks).

There has been a lot happening in UK Higher Education and there have been a lot of stories in the press. For me they are not very balanced and they try to scare monger but they are a reflection of what we are creating with current higher education policies.