Unlocking the future of online learning
Online learning can offer a rich academic and student experience that works for a broad range of audiences
In 2025, the University of Liverpool will celebrate 25 years of delivering online learning. While much has changed since the early 2000s, online learning has become a cornerstone of higher education strategy, according to a panel at the 2024 THE World Academic Summit.
“We were one of the first universities to offer a 100 per cent online degree and today we have around 21,500 graduates,” said Lynn Evans, strategic director of Liverpool Online at the University of Liverpool. “Over that time, we have built a track record internationally and learnt what worked and what students want.”
Nicola Pittman is the managing director at Kaplan Open Learning, which has built platforms for Liverpool Online and University of Essex Online and is now building a range of microcredentials. Pittman said that through partnerships with institutions, Kaplan could focus not only on academic content delivery but also on building engaging student experiences. “The first thing is to recruit students; the second is to keep them. We often deal with students who have other commitments such as families and work, so we need to guide them every step of the way,” she added. Some students require flexibility and support, so it’s important that systems can flag if they are not logging on.
Honoris United Universities is among the largest privately owned networks of higher education institutions in Africa, and the pandemic accelerated its move to online teaching. Melindi Britz, managing director of Honoris’ digital division, explained that rapid growth in the under-24 age group across the African continent makes it important for universities to deliver at scale.
“We’re doubling down as institutions roll out their digital portfolios, seeing if we can share expertise to address this demand a lot faster and share our learnings. We’re looking at things we could not do before, such as white-labelling content or building a programme and localising it,” Britz said. This means universities in the network can move quickly with online delivery without having to replicate courses and invest multiple times over.
Online programmes have given the University of Liverpool the “agility to work across time zones, provide a student experience in an online environment, respond to welfare needs and move outside of traditional academic calendars”, said Evans. She added that there can still be challenges around credibility: “One of the most common questions I’m asked is, ‘Is this a real Liverpool University degree?’ In our case, it really is. They’re designed by our academics, hosted by our faculties and go through the same programme design and approval processes.”
As universities face increasing competition from corporate and other entrants into the online learning market, demonstrating robust academic credibility is key, the panel agreed.
Looking to the future, both Honoris and Liverpool Online are looking at using AI in online learning to create content, enhance personalisation and build digital assistants that can support students with queries about their university experience. Microcredentials will add more flexibility and choice, for example, if students want to expand their learning outside of their core course or gain access to a credential that leads to a new career move. “We want to make microcredentials easy to access and help students use them as bridging modules,” Pittman said.
The panel:
- Sara Custer, editor-in-chief, Inside Higher Ed (chair)
- Melindi Britz, managing director, digital division, Honoris United Universities
- Lynn Evans, strategic director, Liverpool Online, University of Liverpool
- Nicola Pittman, managing director, Kaplan Open Learning
Find out more about Kaplan.
