[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

     Why aren't all Universities making their lectures freely available online?

1.    Recently most universities have been dealing with Covid issues and thus recording videos of lectures which are then distributed to the students by ... whatever... a Moodle system for example.... so the students can watch from their own homes.
     So they can't simply say "we don't have this on video", most of them do.  They aren't old and they are of good quality.   Most Universities spent money getting good video technology when they realised they would have to start doing this sort of thing.

2.     Several notable universities have already released some complete lectures on You Tube.   Many of these do form a complete lecture series.  It didn't seem to hurt those universities too much and may even have promoted those institutions.

3.      There are obvious benefits of providing freely accessible educational material to the general public.

- - - - - - - - - -
     I think a lot of universities are now taking the idea of getting money from students too seriously.   They hold onto their academic material and consider the student to be effectively buying it from them.  This seems unnecessary, the universities will still be providing the following things only to students that have paid:
    (i)   Small group and/or individual contact with staff,   e.g.   seminars and tutorial sessions.
    (ii)   Physical access to equipment and practical sessions.   For example, a library, a laboratory or a ballet hall with hand rails and mirrors.
    (iii)   The right to have an examination,  to get this marked and ultimately to be awarded with a qualification that is recognised.

     I don't think Universities will lose that many potential students just by releasing their lectures online.  Let's be honest, most students really need the paper qualification.  So why, why oh why, are the universities actually getting in the way of a few people who do just want the information and education?  Why are they trying to keep their lectures as something that must be bought and paid for?
    There should be no or negligible cost to the university to release their videos on to You Tube.   They can even collect the advertisement revenue (if any) if they want to.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

Lectures are the principal marketable product of most universities. There being only one set of laws of physics, one periodic table, and plenty of freely available books of mechanical and chemical data, one wonders why there are so many universities all teaching pretty much the same undergraduate syllabus. Why not just have one universal set of lectures?  Professional bodies have determined the essential knowledge base for their respective professions, so once you have covered the basic maths, physics and chemistry you could have universal lectures in all vocational applications.

Face it, if you break your leg, you'd hope that the doctors, nurses, radiographers, physios, lab staff....who treat you, are qualified to a common and acceptable level wherever they happened to train, so why not ensure that they all have the same training and education, and the same qualifying exams? 

And not just science. There is only one code of criminal law, all libraries have access to the same canon of literature, and however you choose to interpret or ignore bits of it, there is only one actual history, one planet full of geography.....so why are there over 150 individual degree-awarding bodies in the UK, all presumably teaching the same thing in the same way that they have done for the last thousand years?

[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

Lectures are the principal marketable product of most universities.

   That's not at all how Universities used to be in Britain when students didn't have to pay their course fees but instead won a place that was fully funded by the government.   At that time their mission statements were more like "we must promote education and be a centre of excellence for research".
    Did someone paint over the word   "promote" and put "sell" instead?    Perhaps everything got moved to the small print:

  We must promote education ¹  and be a centre of excellence for research.

¹   We must not promote education in any way that would harm our ability to sell an education.

Professional bodies have determined the essential knowledge base for their respective professions, so once you have covered the basic maths, physics and chemistry you could have universal lectures in all vocational applications.

    Yes.  In the old days, there was a physical need to be in that lecture hall and so there was a practical limit on the number of people who could see and hear that lecture.     Technology has changed this.  It would make perfect sense to have one universal set of lectures for everyone.
    After the core requirements have been covered, a smaller collection of universities can still work together to provide their lectures on special interest areas.  Sometimes, that might be just one university for very rare areas of interest - but most of an undergraduates studies won't be that specialised.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

Yes.  In the old days, there was a physical need to be in that lecture hall and so there was a practical limit on the number of people who could see and hear that lecture. 

Even so, I recall ten of us for crystallography and at least 200 for organic chemistry and statistics, so the concept of mass teaching of common basics plus vocational specialisms was present in first year undergraduate teaching, 60 years ago and earlier. The value of attending common core lectures in person was that you got to meet future medics and engineers (potential customers and colleagues) a couple of times a week, which is a bit more difficult with Zoom.

[evan_au]

There is certainly a social aspect to university (often centered more on the pub than the lecture hall).
- Some distance education programs actually have weekend or 1-week "in-person" sessions to cover some of the social/physical access components of the course.
- Australia earns a lot of income by training students from other countries at a "Western" university - and this revenue almost dried up during COVID, putting a lot of universities under severe financial pressure, leading some to shed staff.
- There is a fair bit of snobbishness about which university you attended - how could you be so snobbish if everyone had access to the best lectures by the best lecturers?

It is already hard for students to move into tenured professorships - if only the best lecturers were filmed & distributed, there would be no way to practice these skills, and develop the next generation of lecturers
- The current generation of poor lecturers would be out of a job, and their students (and the country) would probably benefit
- The ability to get individual or small-group attention for academic work is of great value, because applying the knowledge is just as hard (and probably more important) than just hearing the knowledge.
- There would need to be an ongoing commitment to tutorials and marking/commenting on student work - tasks that could perhaps be done by phD candidates to earn a bit more income?
- We have a lot of investment in physical capital of universities distributed in different places around the country - physical access to a laboratory will still be important for the physical sciences. Perhaps less so for the Arts.
- Universities would need to focus more on research and supervising research than on lecturing. But funding of research comes from a different bucket of money than tuition; so making this transition would be painful.

I am sure that things could be done better - and it will take the impact of major events like a pandemic to kick us along the path towards something better. Call me an old fuddy-duddy, but I still struggle with a comment I heard about someone learning their science from Tik-Tok...

[alancalverd]

Worth looking at the Open University (UK) which has been delivering high quality distance learning for 50 years, including home science kits and televised lectures (pre-internet!) with a dedicated cadre of "local" tutors - including telephone tutorials for the remotest of students (pre-Zoom!). I was involved in a campaign to establish a medical course which was scotched by the problem of distributing corpses for home dissection, but a number of traditional universities have since experimented with "no dissection" undergraduate courses and the OU itself now offers nursing and health science degrees.

The social element of the OU became somewhat notorious with very intense summer schools in which "mature" students managed to cram a whole year's revision and debauchery into two memorable weeks. Definitely character-forming, and I think I learned some useful mathematics.

[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.
   

There is a fair bit of snobbishness about which university you attended - how could you be so snobbish if everyone had access to the best lectures by the best lecturers?

    Well, obviously snobbery is not a great thing.   However, simply making lectures available to the public does not automatically give every member of the public the ability to sit the examinations of one particular university or go to their small group sessions like seminars, tutorials and lab sessions.   So  "snobbery" doesn't disappear,  the exams weren't all exactly the same and the small group sessions and/or practical sessions will still be different depending on what university (if any) you attend.

    There are two separate issues being discussed here in this thread:   (i)  Just allowing a general member of the public access to lectures from university.
    (ii)  Completely revising the existing university system - this is interesting but over and above the minimum issue at hand.   It's reasonable to suggest that if universities share lectures they would also choose to share examinations on that material - but that is by no means an essential part of the package.   Perhaps, where content was specified by  something like the I.O.P.   (Institute of Physics),  then that material would, eventually, have a common examination.   The universities can still set their own additional examinations on top of that if they wish  and/or   just make the claim   "we've covered that and also more... we just didn't bother to examine the more".

if only the best lecturers were filmed & distributed, there would be no way to practice these skills, and develop the next generation of lecturers

    and also the similar comment...

The current generation of poor lecturers would be out of a job...

     That is an extremely good point and worth addressing straight away.
     This situation does not have to follow UNTIL or UNLESS all the universities do choose to sit the same examinations (see above).   A student at X University faces examination at X University.   So their time is much more efficiently spent watching those lectures.   The examinations were probably written by those lecturers and the lecture material is always going to be slightly more tailored to those examinations.   So, for a student of University X, seeing how University X approach the material, automatically leaving out whatever they leave out, seeing what their chosen examples are and how they set up and solve problems is going to be more helpful for the examinations they will face.
    Students who watch only "the best" lectures from perhaps "the best" universities (by whatever criteria the student applies) are only interested in getting the best education in the long run and not just in passing the examinations they will face.   In reality, you know that isn't going to happen very often.   So a Universities own lectures will still be favoured and followed by their own students.
     Even if the system eventually changes so that there are very few universities creating their own lectures each year, you can still train and develop the upcoming lecturers.  You can imagine situations where a lecturer is effectively training up an apprentice or two.   The existing system of "training" lecturers is basically nonexistent in any case, how could anything else be worse?   They just switch from research and start giving some lectures and it is hoped that they will be able to do it.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

There are two separate issues being discussed here in this thread:   (i)  Just allowing a general member of the public access to lectures from university.
    (ii)  Completely revising the existing university system - this is interesting but over and above the minimum issue at hand. 

Oddly reminscent of Cambridge in the 1960s!
Attendance at lectures was voluntary for almost all students. Medics and engineers  had to sign in, but there were no checks on the door and various friends from the town or other universities attended some of the less vocational lectures.
You could sign up for any exams you wanted, but again there was a minimum requirement for laboratory work if you wanted to graduate in science or engineering.
Directors of Studies simply recommended those lecture courses that covered the syllabus of particular exams, and found tutors for those who wanted tutorials.
It was all very grown-up!

[alancalverd]

Update. Today I attended a free seminar run by the International Organisation for Medical Physics. 3 lecturers presenting the latest hot stuff on radiation epidemiology, for anyone who cared to log in. Over 1000 attendees in (not from) every corner of the world, thanks to Zoom, and the whole show is freely available as a recording for anyone who found the time difference uncomfortable. So if the top-level professional gen is universally accessible at no cost, why not undergraduate teaching?

Clearly there's a difference between presenting your pet research project for an hour once a year and teaching the basic science  three times a week, so someone will need to be paid, but it's definitely time to reduce the number of undergraduate brick institutions and consolidate around a few genuinely universal courses. I can't see many lecturers voluntarily giving up their stipends for the greater good, but there's an opportunity for some really aggressive marketing by an educational supermarket moderated by a small consortium of established universities, to make a substantial killing with a convenience product..

[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

   Thanks for your thoughts, @alancalverd .

I can't see many lecturers voluntarily giving up their stipends for the greater good....

    Do they need to?    Tell them if they spend less time presenting lectures every year they can spend more time getting on with their research, sitting in on conferences others have also shared,  running more small group seminar sessions   etc.     
    There's no need to remove their salaries, just re-allocate what they do with their time.  Many of them never really wanted to be taken away from their research anyway.  On the other hand, some might still like to do something similar to teaching or presenting in front of an audience.   They can take some experiments to a local school, run a special weekend for sixth form students, or get on YouTube and present a science show on behalf of the university etc.      For example, there is "Sixty Symbols" which seems to be a University of Nottingham thing on YouTube, they seem to have all their top staff stepping into the limelight and none of the junior lecturers.   There's also "The naked scientists"  - that seems to be a Cambridge thing and (rumour holds) that they do some podcasts, radio and run a forum on the internet.
     
Best Wishes.

*LATE EDITING:  "stepping into the limelight" = being in front of a spotlight and camera crew.

[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

   I've just found a You Tube channel  called "professor M does science".   Apparently that is supported by Cambridge similar to this establishment.
    Anyway, their Quantum Mechanics videos seem to be extremely good. 
It's not infotainment or PopSci but apparently meant to cover QM from undergraduate through to Masters level  (and the two I've seen are certainly doing that).

I'll withdraw some complaint against Cambridge now.  Not all of it... they could still make all their lectures available but it's a good start.

Best Wishes.

[Halc]

Lectures are the principal marketable product of most universities.

I would say that degrees are the principal marketable product of most universities. As such, I see little disadvantage to putting the lectures out there to those who want the knowledge.
It still takes a university to do genuinely interactive learning, and to assess proficiency of students. There are institutions here that allow one to attend live lectures free of charge, but still charging those actually enrolled in the course.

[alancalverd]

If students didn't attend lectures, what would be the point of going to a university? Pace laboratory work and logged attendance at vocational lectures, but at least half of all students are not studying practical or vocational subjects, so why leave a comfortable bedroom, home cooking, and the mates and sports clubs you already know, for the privilege of squalid living with complete strangers and amassing a debt you will never repay?

If you joined the police or armed forces you'd get all the joy of barracks living, learn a proper trade, get paid for it, and be encouraged to study for an Open University degree in Eng Lit, PPE or whatever, in your spare time (if you hadn't already been selected as a linguist or whatever). You might end up as a fit, educated, useful citizen, with cash in the bank.

[Petrochemicals]

Because the academic faculty are largely composed of luddites.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

    Sorry to dig up this old forum thread but it seemed relevant.   It's a new year and I have a new grumble, suggestion, request or..... something.

    Students now usually have access to lectures and related material online.   They log in with their username and password  etc.    This is usefull because they can be ill or something and may miss a lecture.   A lot of universities had set up decent recording equipment for every lecture after the Covid crisis.   They just could NOT have all the students in one hall and they became aware that they cetainly had to make it possible for students to isolate themselves if they had a positive Covid test rather than feeling that they had to get to lectures.   So a lot of really good, really decent recording equipment and practices were established.

     Anyway, I have discovered that when the student finally finishes their degree, their online credentials are no longer valid.   They cannot log in and see the new lectures and new material for the next year.    That's wrong isn't it, or at least morally wrong?

     The student is reasonably expected to stay up-to-date and the University could make it a little easier for them to do this.    Once a student has paid their course fees for the degree, would it really hurt the universities to grant them continued access to future lecture material?    Surely it's even in the Universities own interests to do so?   They would presumably like the idea that their graduates are as good or better than graduates from other places.    It's a selling point -  "Our graduates are able to keep themselves as up-to-date".

    Morally, why wouldn't the universities want to help their graduates?    I mean these graduates are getting old and we can't always carry a ton of textbooks in our backpacks everywhere we go.   However, many of us have online access and could access all the lecture notes and related material while only carrying a pocket telephone.

    I guess I'll have to add to the problem of increasing population.   I'll have to keep having more children.  I need to keep one in University every 10 years or so,  such that I can "borrow" their active log in credentials.

But... more seriously.... it's just wrong....  Universities used to have mission statements about educating people and encouraging a policy of life-long learning  .... rather than making money.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

That's wrong isn't it, or at least morally wrong?

Not at all. You pay to see a movie, and if you leave the cinema you have to pay to see it again. As a student, you pay to be taught and examined to a timetable, and it's up to you to remember what you were taught or keep notes.

The mission statement for most universities never included free continuing access to lectures, though many offer library services to alumni. The Open University happily recycles its broadcasts but always made its money (academics have to eat) from tuition and examination fees and the sale of course textbooks.

When you buy a car or a house, you don't expect the seller to update it free of charge every couple of years.

[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

The mission statement for most universities never included free continuing access to lectures,.....

    In the days when you had to be in a lecture hall there were going to be problems with space and seats available.   That's not a problem any longer when these former students are just sat on their own chair in their own house with a computer screen.

    They now have the ability to do something they couldn't before.  There's nothing in any mission statement along the lines of ......   in the future if we can do more, then we just won't.  We were only pretending that we wanted to do these things......


Example:      The mission statement of Cambridge University is described here:   https://www.cam.ac.uk/about-the-university/how-the-university-and-colleges-work/the-universitys-mission-and-core-values 

These extracts are most relevant:
    *   education which enhances the ability of students to learn throughout life
    *   the contribution which the University can make to society through the pursuit, dissemination, and application of knowledge
   
Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

And if any of my companies had a mission statement it would probably include contributing to the health and safety of patients and workers through the pursuit, dissemination,  etc., but we still charge for what we make and do, every time.

Apropos online learning, one of my sons teaches teachers to teach teachers. This year's crop of post-COVID graduates almost all washed out of their practical training because they didn't realise that "real world work" involves turning up at 8 am and doing stuff until 4 pm, like every day, man.