So I dialled into an outstanding BGA/AMBA webinar by David Lefevre yesterday on “The future digital Business School campus: using digital learning to scale impact”. It was thought provoking and had a number of challenging ideas, but one in which I simply still find it difficult to square the circle on.
In the talk David outlined an ambitious (though possibly necessary as we move more online) step-change in how we need to view ‘The Digital Campus’, suggesting and highlighting that current decision makers seem very willing to sign off on buildings that cost many millions and suddenly question hundreds of thousands being spent on Digital infrastructure. In this I think he may have a point, and certainly as we move towards a 5G environment I think expectations will possibly greatly change as to what digital infrastructure (and level of investment) is necessary to remain at the forefront in Executive Education. It’s difficult to predict what the overall impact will be in 10 years time that revolutions in speed new technologies will bring (it’s possibly like trying to look forward before the first smartphone hit the market and trying to predict the impact of that product) but one certainty is that change is coming and Business Schools need to be aware of that change and keep abreast of what the leading edge of the competition is up-to.
I found that aspect of the talk all very agreeable. The next less so.
David went on to argue for the need for highly differentiated digital infrastructure to appeal to Exec Education. Effectively arguing (quite reasonably) that the expectation’s of individuals paying the high prices of Exec Education would expect some kind of differentiated high-end (dare I say, more plush?) Digital Infrastructure offering that more suited their status, fee’s paid and level of expectations. David highlighted this with photo’s of high end Business hotels (which had very nice websites indeed) arguing that the standard university VLE delivered to undergraduates perhaps is not the same VLE that you’d want to use your Exec Education for, yet most University’s do.
And this is the area of contention and disagreement that I have.
I’ll happily accept that the level of investment in Exec Education in terms of resources created, intensity of blended learning, etc. within a VLE will be very different. But I would question why a different Digital Infrastructure + VLE itself would be necessary.
To give an analogy, you have two paintings, both of them are very different, and perhaps even use different painters, but they still use the same canvas and paints as long as the canvas and paints are of a high enough quality. (that we’re just about to move to Canvas may have been the direction of that analogy).
So i asked the question “why can’t all our students be driving Rolls-Royces?”. In other words, if you as an University possessed a high quality differentiated VLE that was simply better, why wouldn’t you use that for all your education? UG, PG everything?
I think David’s answer perhaps didn’t completely grasp the nuances of the point to be fair to him in a fast flowing webinar situation. His reply was, “well just like in the real world as to why everyone doesn’t drive a Roll’s-Royce. Not everyone can afford one”. That, I think, misses the point of what digital allows you to do.
In the real world the reason we’re not all driving Rolls-Royces is the cost per unit of production. In a digital environment this issue is overcome. If you have an amazing Digital infrastructure or VLE already it would be a matter of adding users, not creating new (hand-crafted) products from scratch like the car scenario.
So, I disagree somewhat. David Lefevre ‘s quite strong arguments for the need for a highly differentiated Exec Education digital infrastructure are very appealing, but ultimately I think that the VLE itself is just a canvas (sometimes literally) that, if it’s good and robust enough (and there’s perhaps always going to be question marks on that front) should be able to be serve multiple audiences.
That said (and in counterpoint to my own disagreement!) it seems that some leading Universities are already travelling in this direction with David highlighting that Imperial has joined a coalition of other university’s to produce a differentiated VLE product for Exec Education. Which brings me all the way back to my first point about “Business Schools need to be aware of that change and keep abreast of what the leading edge of the competition is up-to” and certainly if this is the direction of travel in Exec Education, any market participant would not be doing themselves any favours to ignore it.
Thought-provoking and overall an excellent webinar.
If you have any thoughts on this, please do leave a comment below, and if you’d like to write an Blog post for the forum please do contact me.