CSHE - University Teaching as E-Business

University Teaching as E-Business?
Research and Policy Agendas

Case Study: Global Education Network

CSHE > Research > University Teaching as E-Business > Case Studies > Global Education Network

NB: These draft case studies, compiled by Shannon Lawrence, are an internal resource for the University Teaching as E-business? research project. Originally released in October 2001, they were updated in March 2002. They were gathered from numerous sources, including news articles, press releases, scholarly reports, and company websites. In many cases, information presented herein was taken directly from The Chronicle of Higher Education's longitudinal series of articles on Information Technology and Distance Education, which represents the single best source for information about this evolving universe.

Global Education Network: An Overview

AT A GLANCE

Website: www.gen.com
E-learning model: portal, distance education
Funding model: private, for-profit
Leadership: Herbert Allen and Mark Taylor
Employees: 15, as of late 2000
Location: New York
Revenue Streams: percentage of tuition and fees from students enrolling in courses offered through institutions, also direct income from non-affiliated students
Funding Source: unknown initial funding, $20 earmarked from financier Herbert Allen
Strengths: concept of courses for credit from individual elite liberal arts colleges
Challenges: buy-in from colleges in order to make business model work

The Global Education Network (GEN) is a private, for-profit company, founded in May 1999 by Herbert Allen, president of the venture-capital firm Allen & Co. and an alumnus of Williams College; and Mark Taylor, Cluett Professor of Humanities and Director of the Center for Technology in the Arts and Humanities at Williams College. Their vision is to provide the highest quality educational experience in the humanities, arts, and sciences, to the greatest number of people through the use of emerging Internet technologies. By fully utilizing innovative teaching and multimedia technologies, and by exploiting the strengths of traditional educational techniques, GEN is creating a new learning environment. GEN operates solely as a web-based company with plans for steady growth that will include adding six new courses through 2002.

Products/Services

From September through December 2001, Global Education Network is conducting a pilot with two courses ("Alexander the Great" and "Understanding Mass Media"), with 200 students across the United States affiliated with several colleges, universities, and alumnae associations. Starting in 2002, these two courses and two others will be available to the general public, targeted at college and community college students as well as lifelong learners. Students can take a GEN course through an academic institution by enrolling through that institution. Students unaffiliated with a group who want to take a GEN course will be able to register directly through the GEN.com website in early 2002.

Working closely with top-level college professors, GEN courses are created by combining four different kinds of learning modules:

Preparation Modules provide students with everything they need to know before taking each class,including: required readings, key points, thought questions, glossary terms, and a printable transcript of all video lectures in each class.
Lecture Modules include videotaped lectures illustrated with animations, archival images and footage, and on-screen glossary terms.
Interactive Modules allow students to interact with both course materials and other students, as well as constantly assess students' understanding of the subject matter.
Test Modules allow students to participate in private online discussions with instructors as well as in class discussions, and allow instructors to assess students' understanding of course materials via these discussions.

The GEN learning modules are as flexible or as fixed as students and instructors want to make them, thus helping all GEN students learn in the ways they are most comfortable. A "Course Map" then helps both students and instructors navigate through these modules and keep track of which have been completed throughout each student's course experience.

GEN courses will vary in length, with most lasting from 10 to 16 classes. Individual classes will average approximately one hour. This does not include taking time out between viewing modules for additional note taking, studying, or reviewing your own work through the use of self-assessment modules, nor does it include reading and other assignments. Time frames will vary depending on each student’s level of enrollment. For instance, students who take a course for credit will need to complete the course work in the time frame set forth for that individual course. GEN advises students to allow at least 110 to 130 hours to devote to course work, or approximately eight hours per week for a 14 or 16 week course, which includes the time to view the classes.

Graded students will be expected to take all classes and complete all assignments and required readings within the allocated time frame set forth by instructors of the individual course. Graded students will also be expected to hand in all tests, including a midterm and final exam, within set time parameters.

Students can, in theory, take GEN course modules in whatever sequence they want. Students can start with the first module of the first class, and work their way through all the modules in sequence as presented; courses are often structured in a certain way for good reasons. Or, GEN instructors may ask students to take certain classes in a certain order - perhaps class one, then class five, then class three, and so on -- or even to take certain sequences of modules within a class in a certain order.

Global Education Network's courses that are offered for credit require the participation of assigned instructors, who are responsible for monitoring students' participation, determining topics for discussion boards, addressing student questions and concerns, grading assignments, and issuing grades. When a college or university uses a GEN course, it provides its own instructor. Eventually, GEN may build its own faculty organization in order to ease the burden on participating institutions of higher education. Instructors can be professors, adjunct professors, or senior teaching fellows. By giving students the opportunity to view lectures on their own time, GEN courses allow instructors to maximize the time they spend interacting with their students.

GEN courses will most likely cost a student between $500 and $700, but students will have the option of auditing for a reduced cost, and scholarships also will be available.

Governance/Management

The academic advisory board was formed to oversee and consult on all GEN courses.

Academic Advisory Board
John W. Chandler, President Emeritus of Williams College and former professor of philosophy and religion	Professor Chandler attended Wake Forrest College and Duke University. He holds honorary degrees at 16 other prestigious institutions of higher education and is the former President of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Reverend Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame	Reverend Hesburgh holds 141 honorary degrees and received the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, from President Johnson in 1964. He has served as Chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation, President of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University and Chairman of the International Federation of Catholic Universities.
James O. Freedman, President Emeritus of Dartmouth College	A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, Professor Freedman served as a law clerk to Thurgood Marshall on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He also served as President of the University of Iowa and is author of the book Idealism and Liberal Education.
Frank H.T. Rhodes, President Emeritus of Cornell University	Professor Rhodes teaches geological sciences and is a visiting fellow of both Clare Hall in Cambridge and Trinity College in Oxford. He holds honorary degrees from more than 30 institutions and has served as Chair of the American Council on Education and the American Association of Universities. Professor Rhodes also chaired the 1987 National Commission on Minority Participation in Education.

Finance/Strategy

Herbert Allen, the Wall Street magnate of Allen & Co., has earmarked $20 million to launch and sustain Global Education Network (GEN), designed to be a clearinghouse of courses from America's top colleges. Projections show that colleges that work with the company could earn $250,000 per course. By the fall of 2000, GEN had approached 15 elite liberal-arts colleges about collaborating to sell online courses, and met with mixed responses. Global Education Network officials are trying to be flexible in adapting to the different responses.

"In instances where the schools are not prepared to push ahead institutionally, we have -- with their knowledge in some cases -- worked with individual professors," says Steve Greenberg, the chairman of the company's board of directors. By this fall, he adds, GEN will have worked with more than a dozen professors to transfer courses they are already teaching in person into an online format. The courses will all be advertised as GEN courses, and will not be offered for credit at any of the colleges involved.

William S. Reed, vice president for finance and administration at Wellesley, says the college has reached "an agreement in principle," and will most likely soon become a "charter member" of the company. Five Wellesley professors are working with the Global Education Network staff to videotape courses that should be ready to go online for students in January, says Mr. Reed. He adds that Wellesley administrators were interested in cooperating with the company because the partnership will allow them to work through several logistical issues related to online learning without bearing the financial responsibility. "We are not investing any college money," he says. "But it focuses our attention on a host of complicated issues which we don't have answers to -- like intellectual property, faculty release time, and how to provide services for distance students."

The professors who create the courses will be identified as being from Wellesley, according to Mr. Reed, but the students will not receive credit for the courses from the college and the professors so far have made the courses during the summer on their own time. GEN pays Wellesley, which then pays the professors, says Mr. Reed.

At Brown, officials are "exploring the possibility" of entering into a formal agreement with the Global Education Network, according to Laura Freid, executive vice president for public affairs and university relations. She confirms that five Brown professors are working to produce courses for GEN, but said the courses will not be promoted as being part of the Brown curriculum.

Duke University is also considering an arrangement with GEN. "We have indicated to them that we may be interested in pursuing a relationship with respect to some undergraduate courses," says Peter Lange, the university's provost. "But we have not gone into detail, either with them or amongst ourselves." Mr. Lange adds that Duke might eventually make the company's courses available to its undergraduates during summer vacations and when they are on leave or studying abroad.

Spokesmen for Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford Universities have said that they are unlikely to strike deals with GEN (The Chronicle, January 28).

Some schools, such as Allen's alma mater, Williams College, are concerned with losing control over their "intellectual property," i.e., the lecture material. Others ponder the issue of selectivity: how valuable is an Ivy League course when it's available to millions of people? Herb Allen is aware of the difficulties. For the newcomers to compete with established educational institutions on the web, private capital must bring needed innovation to the educational process. "The question we will continue to ask is: Can we [GEN] make it better than sitting in English 101 at Williams?" And if not, he says: "If we don't get the quality we want, we'll shut it down."

References

Carr, Sarah. "Distance-Education Company Woos Bastions of the Liberal Arts." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 January 2000. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v46/i21/21a04301.htm
Carr, Sarah. "Online-Course Company Makes Only a Few Inroads in Working With Elite Colleges." The Chronicle of Higher Education, 18 August 2000. http://chronicle.com/weekly/v46/i50/50a03701.htm
Grimes, Ann. "E-commerce on the Battlefield: A Matter of Degree." The Wall Street Journal, 17 July 2000.
Svetcov, Danielle. "The Virtual Classroom versus the Real One." Forbes.com Best of the Web, 18 September, 2000.
Weber, Thomas E. "Allen is Wooing Elite Colleges to Teach Online." The Wall Street Journal, 28 July 2000.

Other Useful Publications Not Researched

Davis, Alix. "Two Professors Produce Online Classes with GEN." The Williams Record (Williams College), 19 September 2000.
Traub, James. "Online U." The New York Times Magazine, 19 November 2000.