Troubled waters

InsideHigherEd just reported the New York Times is teaming up with a handful of colleges (including Ball State University's undergraduate College of Communications, CUNY, Rosemont College, and Thomas Edison College) and will start awarding certificates in a number of content areas. The article provides some details about the relationship… professors at the partnering institutions will teach the course and the NYT provides “all the educational resources incorporated in its New York Times Knowledge Network,” subject-specific content modules, and template tools. The Times will also offer up topic specialists from its newsroom for virtual guest appearances. Courses maybe taken individually ala carte and prix-fixe with various tuition and fee structures.

This is not a completely new foray for the NYT. In 2007 the NYT announced an initiative to provide non-credit distance education and course-content packages provide access to special packages of content -- summaries of articles, interactive maps, video, audio, graphs -- on a wide range of topics. The packages provide “full access to services offered by Epsilen, a company that offers electronic portfolios, blogging and other software, and interactive teaching tools to allow for course discussions, professional social networking.”

While I don’t have strong feelings about the earlier venture (who could be against learning for learning’s sake), this new initiative is troubling. Let’s cut to the chase and state upfront that the NYT and the partner institutions are all looking at the venture with the expectation that it will be revenue generating. Understood from this perspective the relationship makes sense. The NYT has a robust technological infrastructure, technical and educational expertise, and a century of content sitting around collecting digital dust. The institutions have the professors (and part-time faculty members) needed to deliver the content as well as the required admissions infrastructure. Each has an existing resource that the other needs to generate revenue. In addition, each brings to the table some degree of legitimacy and cachet. The institutions are accredited and the NYT (while having fallen on some hard times) is still a magnificent publication and social force.

Sounds like a great relationship. So what’s the problem? To some degree I am troubled by the notion of branding…the NYT and the partnering institutions’ need the legitimacy that the other’s ‘brand’ brings to the partnership. Each could possibly develop their own certificate programs (a costly endeavor to be sure) but, as the director of education for the NYT’S states in the article, a certificate bearing both brands will ‘absolutely’ make an impressive addition to a resume. Institutions of higher education are of course familiar with branding (just ask an employee who uses an institution’s logo incorrectly) but primarily for its own uses. By leveraging its ‘brand’ with the NYT, an institution is lending its brand to a for-profit (maybe next quarter) enterprise. In other words, the institution is aligning itself with the market place. Is this any different then a college that offers Microsoft certificates? I believe it is in that there is not the same notion of co-branding.

But this issue is somewhat minor. What really gets me has to do with who will really teach these courses, who will develop and own the curriculum, and how much this will possibly cost the institutions.

The earlier initiative provided a stipend for faculty members to teach courses but it was also made clear that these courses were to be over-and-above their normal teaching loads. So, who is going to teach these courses? Senior faculty members with tenure who think this is an interesting opportunity to develop some new technology skills and who want the extra income. Doubtful. Unless we are talking about 5-figure stipends, I don’t see this happening. How about associate professors? Nope, they are too busy trying to make full by publishing and bringing in external funding. These folks have just hit their stride in terms of productivity. Maybe assistant professors? This is a possibility, especially for an assistant professor who is paying off student loans, who believes it will help them with tenure, or who thinks it will get them in with the higher-ups (hint—it won’t help with tenure). I guess that largely leaves some needy assistant professors and part-time faculty (my guess is that teaching these extra courses will not help them to become eligible to receive benefits).

Who will own the curriculum? In other words, once someone has labored to put together the course, to whom does the product belong? This might seem trivial but in reality it is not. First, creating this type of program is time and labor intensive. It takes specific skills and lots of content knowledge to put together poorly, let alone well. If the person who did all this work is let go or needs to focus on other priorities (publish, publish, publish), can the institution simply give it all to the next person who takes on the challenge?

Finally, will this really produce revenue for institutions? Yes, it will bring in dollars (just like ticket sales bring in money for college sporting events), but will it bring in more than enough to cover the true full cost to the institution? In other words, after all the marketing, fixed-costs, HR costs, technical support, and reduced productivity is calculated, did the institution have more cash in its pockets? And what happens if the venture starts to hemorrhage money and one of the parties decides to pull the plug? Do you think the NYT (a for-profit company) cares if 10-100 individuals get screwed because a program closes down mid-certificate? A for-profit company can make such decisions rather quickly and with little discussion. This is not the case with universities. If this venture fails institutions will be put in a very difficult, and possibly costly position.

I don’t have answers to these questions but I think it worthwhile to at least raise these questions. I can only hope that the departments involved with developing these certificates were brought into the conversations early on and asked similar questions.



http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/14/times


http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/09/07/nyt