This document discusses strategic revenue management approaches to widen access to university education through more flexible online learning options. It proposes using new technologies like MOOCs and variable pricing to make education more affordable and accessible. Examples are provided of how online platforms like Coursera and Floofl provide free, open, online courses in general education and specific fields like travel and tourism. The conclusion is that new technologies can revolutionize learning by removing scalability barriers and making high-quality education available to more people globally.

1. Strategic Revenue Management
towards widening access to
university education
A Conceptual Paper presented in occasion of the
6th International Conference on Services Management
June 24th, 2013.
Authors
Kate Varini & George Roberts
Oxford Brookes University

2. Profitable & Accessible University
Education & Lifelong, Anytime Learning
• Revenue Management
– Variable pricing
– Predictable duration
– Flexible delivery & payment modes
• New technology to enable scalability
– Delivery modes e.g. MOOCs
– Management of constrained capacity
(rooms, lecturers) and pricing for profit

3. Opportunities for Online Learning
• The Internet, mobile devices and social media,
have led to a surge in the time individuals spend
“online”
• New generation of middle class; growth in the
private sector
• The fact that demand for quality education
products that cannot be met
• Increased interest in formal learning, using online
media
• New commercial opportunities within the
education sector

4. Questions
How many can afford University Education
today?
How is a students university education funded?
What problems do student indebtedness
create?
How might widening access to university
education positively impact society?

5. Open Access, Meeting Needs
• Work related vocational learning
– Mid career professionals
– Cannot attend full-time university courses
– Do not have a first degree
• Changing needs of university students
– Support to navigate information already available
– Desire for value for money: What?
• Need to disaggregate the role of teacher and segment
contact time by cost
– Group/Individual
– Tutorials, lectures, office hours, oral feedback, placement
visits, etc.

6. Free, Open, Online Learning
• The Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development
• A "small open online task-based MOOC targeting new
lecturers, PhD students who teach, and people moving
into HE from industry
• 200 participants
– Some new to HE &to learning online, chose course for
convenience
– MOOC ‘veterans’ & experienced lecturers, to refresh or
share experience
– About half from outside the UK
• 25 received individual feedback
• 60 completed the course
• 14 were assessed and received certificates

7. MOOC Design: A Compromise
• 5 weeks
• Group-work and peer mentoring
• 1 Tutor: 8 -10 people.
• Approaches to assessment needed to promote
scalability
• Active participants; 100 hours
• Thus worth 10 - 20 credits at post graduate level
• Access to completion of a range of academic and
professional qualifications
• Ancillary services such as tutorials, certification and
assessment could build the net economic contribution
made by a MOOC

8. Free Learning, Open, Online, Flexible Learning
• Promote a Social/Global/Community mission
• Improving learning gains
• Continuing professional development (CPD)
• Enhancing reputation, increase global visibility
• A showcase of expertise
• Growth area for HE has been online
• Can entering untapped markets
• Serving existing markets in new ways
• Reduce costs/prices where contact is not
valued/essential
• Building a broad base of future PG customers
• Opportunities to apply revenue management;
products/differential pricing/profit optimisation

9. Actual MOOC overview
• General education on-line courses
• Coursera.org
• Industry specific on-line courses
– Travel & Tourism
• Floofl.com

10. Coursera.org

11. Coursera.org

13. Coursera.org

14. Floofl.com
Free Learning, Open, Online, Flexible Learning
• As one of the largest industries in the world
Travel & Tourism is provides unlimited
opportunities for profitable micro tourism
business

15. Floofl.com
• Aims to provide free university level on-line
tourism education
• The on-line platform can be used to upload
particular courses for students, members,
users and /or clients

16. Floofl.com
VISION
To have an on-going, significant, positive impact on
the lives of many others, all around the world
MISSION
To provide free on-line tourism education to
enhance employability and the means for people to
emerge from hardship with dignity

17. Floofl.com

18. Floofl.com

19. Flexible Learning
Contextually unique variants for each learner including where people let their "real" selves show
• Poor unemployed mature Sam
• MOOCs
• Work related vocational
learning
• Peer mentoring
• Gains employment
• MOOC
• Moves through the ranks
• Earns a good salary
• Completes paid PG modules
over a 5 year period
• Career develops
• Opportunities for paid life long
learning
• Scholarship for research
degree
• Affluent late teen Annie
• Attends Uni, socialises
• Wants/expects high contact
• Needs a significant amount of
extra personalised support
• Fails modules
• MOOCs
• UG to PG
• Career Mentoring
• Employment
• MOOCs
• Executive Coaching
• Continuous Executive
education
LOWCOST/LOWERPRICE/SOCIALBENEFITS
HIGHCOST/PRICE

20. Stand Alone MOOC Learning
• Interaction may a may differ
• Active participation needs
– Multi-tasking needed
– Ability organize a personal learning network
– Time management skills
– Personal motivation
• Support though peer and tutor interaction
• MOOC facilitators one way regular communication
• Peer interaction; where the less experienced benefit
from the expertise of others

21. Stand Alone MOOC Learning
• Evolving ‘digital practice’ and the ability to
participate within a digital economy
• Participants have the option to maintain a digital
identity, different from their real identity to address
instances where participation can be inhibited by
learner identity
• The role of participant as knowledge builder may feel
alien to some learners

22. Conclusion
• The financial crisis & the social implications of
increases in the global population raises new
commercial opportunities
• New technology, particularly the Internet and big
data, can bring about a paradigm change to the
way learning and teaching is deployed
• MOOCs will play an important role as these
remove many of the existing barriers to a formal
university education, particularly those related to
scalability

23. Welcome to the future!
Be Floofly!