Media coverage of the University in the past week has been enlightening and entertaining. It is always great to see the real achievements of our academic community get the public recognition they deserve. In the past two weeks we have enjoyed both national and international coverage. Our research project to explore the submerged town of Dunwich off the Suffolk coast using underwater imaging technology was featured on BBC Online, The Guardian, The Times, and NBC to name a few. The University was featured on the front page of The Daily Telegraph and Beja, the largest magazine in Brazil, for research that has shown that blind and visually impaired people have the potential to use echolocation, similar to that used by bats and dolphins, to determine the location of an object and many of our academics have given expert commentary to the likes of the Today programme, BBC News and The Guardian. These are just a few examples of the extensive media coverage we have received; there are many more on the University website.
We have received coverage for other issues too during this period. Last Thursday, the Times Higher Education (THE) published an article on the QAA announcement that it had upheld our appeal against the judgements of a Review conducted last year with the headline “Titanic victory: QAA sunk by Southampton”. The article runs to nearly 700 words, considerably longer than the announcement from QAA, including some rather speculative quotes from former Solent V-C Roger Brown.
The following day, both THE and The Times ran articles that referred to a speech I gave at a Universities UK Conference on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) held in London. The headline in the THE article was “Embrace MOOCs or face decline, warns V-C”, and in The Times article “Medieval lectures could be replaced by free online courses”. This is all great fun provided you don’t take it too seriously.
Most people in the University community will have seen the email I sent two weeks ago when QAA communicated to us the outcome of our appeal. The QAA have in place a process that allowed for appeal and we used that process. Having failed in its primary responsibility, it is to the credit of QAA that its procedures allowed us to rectify an unjustified position.
The coverage of my speech on MOOCs was exaggerated but more or less accurate. I am a fan of MOOCs and have enthusiastically supported the University joining the Futurelearn consortium. I have been deeply impressed by the enthusiasm that has been observable within the University community for MOOCs, much of it inspired by a commitment to improve access to world-class learning opportunities to millions around the world who otherwise would have little or no access. We expect to have our first MOOCs up and running in the autumn to fit with the launch of Futurelearn, and are also working on several mini-MOOCs to offer learners a “taster” of what Southampton has to offer.
The comment about “MOOC or die” that led to the headline was a rhetorical device designed to set up the main thrust of my speech. It is a quote from another commentator, not mine. My view is that universities should embrace the technologies that are being advanced through MOOCs to substantially improve the quality of the experience of campus-based students. I also offered my own speculation that we are at the beginning of an irreversible decline in the use of traditional lectures to hundreds of students in massed lecture theatres and that this too can be greatly to the benefit of campus-based students. Put simply, by placing content online and encouraging students to engage online with key information, more time is available for interactive teaching and learning.
I have no idea where MOOCs will go, but am convinced that we should make use of the technologies to enhance the quality of the educational experience of our current students, and to reach the next generation of students. In my view it is better to be a participant than observer.
All of this media coverage serves as a reminder that we are fortunate to have a lively, free and diverse press in the UK, offering a properly critical view of the world whilst adding a bit of life and colour to the stories they tell. A bit like a good blog.