Case Study: Online Education

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The Internet not only changes the way you learn over the internet but affect on also how you find and search for those education providers, including use Google.com and checks the public comments. Now, the Internet starts a war in the education industry.

As specifically for Ivey’s School of Information Management, one of the most competitive science subjects, it is facing the incredible challenge from online education competitors. As we all know, most of the online education providers start with science subjects like computer science and information management, for those subjects share the same common basic knowledge and similar technology applications. Compared to Ivey’s regular courses provided by School of Information Management, online education gives more choices and options for users, from more thoughts from professor to more cases study from Internet resources. On the other hand, the key factor, tuition fee that online education charges is much less expensive than Ivey’s School of Information Management.

Alternative Analysis

I personally speak highly of the expansion strategy of Ivey University the way they partnership with other global institutions. It is a great opportunity to branding the fame of it. As Tradition university, Ivey should continue on delivering high-quality courses and on supporting high-quality research service.

Many scholars, like Dr. Koller who speaks out their opinions of the online education, “Once we digitize not just the ditribution of the knowledge but the production of it, the existing university system loses it raison d’etre. Why would people come to a single physical location at higher and higher costs when the knowledge it houses is no longer scarce?” , I argue that Dr. Koller did point out a view that how the Internet would change the education industry in the new few years.

Those days, the open source has been a very heated topic. Those open source content creations, benefiting from the high-speed development technology of Internet, now deliver for-profit content and SP service to an amount of users that traditional education institution could never match.

Udemy.com is an online learning platform, it is aiming at professional adults who are eager for the new skill to their resumes, or explore their passions. Unlike the traditional MOOC programs provider, like coursera.com, Udemey is more like a platform that allows experts of any kind to create courses which can be offered free or certain amount of fees, from various type of videos, PowerPoint presentation, Pdfs, Audio and etc. Within a few months, 1,000 instructors had created about 2,000 courses, and Udemy had nearly 10,000 registered users. As of 2017, there are more than 45,000 courses on Udemy. Udemy has also been discussed in The New York Times, The China Post, Fast Company, the BBC YPN and TechCrunch, with Mashable noting "Udemy offers an experience that rivals the real classroom, and should prove to be a useful utility for teachers and students of all subject matters."

If Coursera is the pioneer for the online education industry, the Udemy is a company that evolves from traditional online education to a new stage. There is always a new type of business evolving from the previous one, you never know when your business turns from “new” to “tradition”. It might be just in one night. It would be great for Ivey University if they can catch up on those new waive of technology and keep exploring the possibility of it.

Conclusion

It is the age of Internet. Disruptive technology has been changed lots of industry, some are perspective and some are fading out. You can never stop the technology to improve since it is along with the prospective of development and evolution of human beings.

when new technology comes, we may have some concerns on how it will affect current industry environment, whether it is a good or bad, but you can never ignore it since it might change the whole industry in one night.

From personal experience, I would suggest those industries and business owners that listening to the real voice from customers. You should always stay and listen closely to customers in an effort to develop products and service that best serve their needs. Customer need is the first priority that not matter how technology changes. What we can do is to keep monitoring the emergence of new technologies and to stay close to customers needs.

“Chance only embraces the prepared mind” You can only benefit from the new technology as long as if you open your mind and embrace it.

Reference:

Udemy.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udemy

Lynley, Matthew. Online Teaching Platform Udemy Raises $1M, Still Too Cool for School. The New York Times. August 31, 2010.

Chapman, Glenn. Online learning startup rises on US$1 mil. funding from 'angel' investors. The China Post. September 2, 2010.

Schomer, Stephanie. Udemy: A Free University for All. Fast Company. December 2, 2010.

Van Grove, Jennifer. Get a Real-Life Learning