OpenLearning CEO: Embrace opportunities in the post-epidemic era

The unexpected COVID-19 pandemic has forced Australia's education industry to face an industry revolution. While the black swan theory impacts traditional education, it also brings new opportunities and challenges to online education industry. Over the past five years, the development of Australia's online education industry has accelerated, and the market generally expects that the industry is expected to bloom in the post-epidemic era.

The decline in the number of international students during the epidemic has put increasing pressure on Australian universities and forced the reform of Australia's international education delivery model, making the online learning delivery model expected to be more popular in the future.

Recently, ACB News’s reporter interviewed the Co-Founder & Group CEO of OpenLearning (ASX:OLL) through ZOOM. Mr. Adam Brimo gave us a brief introduction and the current situation and prospects of OpenLearning. Mr Adam Brimo also shared his unique views on the challenges that were mentioned in our previous online education industry report.

ACB News : Please briefly introduce OpenLearning and the difference between OpenLearning and its competitors, such as Coursera and Future Learn. What role does Open University Australia play in the online education industry?

Adam Brimo : As we all know, for most people, traditional online learning used to be video teaching, online quiz and Power Point slides. This way of learning is called passive learning, (such as listening to lectures, reading the slides, etc.) People passively receive information, (knowledge is passively transferred to mind). Such learning absorption rate is less than 30%. I believe that no one can become a leader in the industry by watching videos alone. People learn by doing, and through doing projects and activities to master critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills --- Most employers also value those skills.

OpenLearning changed the traditional online learning model and proposes an online learning method based on the concept of social constructivism, which allows students to actively participate in learning by joining in different projects and activities. The social learning method is that we will not tell students what the answer is, but give them actual problems, so that students can actively think and find solutions to problems.

The online courses provided by Coursera are more inclined to passive learning, that is, it provides online videos and online assessments, and students obtain the certificate after completing the corresponding assessments. The head office is located in the United States. Future Learn is based in the UK and they also provide social learning courses, including group discussions and timely feedback from tutors. Compared with Future Learn, OpenLearning is a higher level of social learning.

In short, OpenLearning has the following three unique advantages:

1. OpenLearning is currently the one of the largest SAAS learning platforms in the Australian and Southeast Asian higher education industry. We provide a platform for educators and institutions, allowing them to upload their teaching videos and activities, so that education institutions can deliver interactive online learning courses to students through our platform. We also design online course to education institutions. In addition, we have our own OpenLearning marketplace, education institutions can provide their online courses on the marketplace, and platform users pay a certain fee to get the courses access.

2. Geographical advantage: Our markets are concentrated in Australia and Malaysia. We also have students from other countries, including Indonesia, Singapore and the United States, we also support students from China. Focusing on the local market allows us to select the most popular courses on the market, and it also allows us to understand the needs of employers in the first place. People prefer to choose brands that they are familiar with. It is the same for online learning courses. Perhaps local Australian students are more willing to choose universities and institutions they are familiar with.

3. OpenCreds: This is our unique mirco-credentials framework, which provides online master's courses, graduate courses, vocational training courses, professional courses, and the learning time ranging from 2.5 hours to 150 hours. In addition, a strong business partnership is also a major feature of OpenLearning. (Editor’s note: OpenLearning’s current partners include the University of New South Wales, the University of Newcastle, Deakin University, the University of Technology, Australian Catholic University and the University of Western Sydney and several well-known local universities in Malaysia. Professional institutions include the Export Council of Australia and Professional Teachers Council NSW)

Regarding Open University Australia, it does not have their own learning platform to provide courses for students. Open University is currently the largest online higher education marketplace in Australia. They summarize all online courses of universities into one platform and focus more on marketing. . Open University Australia is also one of the partners of OpenLearning. On the platform, students can choose our micro-credential courses. We cooperate with Open University Australia to establish the Open Micro-credential Development Grant to support universities to provide Micro-credential courses.

ACB News: ACB News mentioned several potential challenges that Online Education providers are facing in the report, can you please tell us how OLL deals with the challenges. Before that, how do you see potential growth in the industry caused by the pandemic?

Adam Brimo :There is no doubt that the epidemic has accelerated the development of the online education industry, prompting more education institutions to provide online courses.

1. Education institutions and the public started to realize the different levels of online education. Before the epidemic, when we talked about online education, everyone naturally thought of opening the software and logging in to the website to learn online. Few people thought about how to offer students more interactive online study experience. During the epidemic, education institutions have gradually realized the importance of designing good online courses so that students can have a better interactive experience;

2. The development of short-term courses. Under the impact of the epidemic, a large number of people who have lost their jobs are beginning to realize the importance of having different skills, and employers' requirements for job skills have further increased. At present, there is a higher demand in the market to encourage people to upgrade their skills, but for many people, it is not realistic to return to university for two years of postgraduate study, so short-term practical courses have become particularly important.

Facts might bring impacts on the online education industry players:

Government Policy:

ACB News: In June 2015, the Australian Federal Government announced it would be getting its first MOOCs (massive open online courses, explanation of MOOCs in Chinese) delivered by OpenLearning. Last October, Australian government announced the establishment of National Micro-credential Marketplace. The concept of Mirco-credentials becomes more popular nowadays, do you think that the establishment of National Micro-credential Marketplace is a sign that the Australian government begins to give more support to Online Education.

Adam Brimo : First of all, I must affirm the important status of on campus learning, which still occupies a major part in the Australian market. But it is foreseeable that the Australian government encourages the development of the online education and short-term training courses. Of course, I expect that the Australian government will continue to support the development of the online education industry in the future. Usually, the Australian government is not directly involved in the design of the courses. The government's responsibility is to set rules and industry laws and regulations. Education providers can decide how to operate online courses on the premise of complying with the rules.

Capital factor

ACB News: As a SAAS provider and online education courses platform, OLL has a strong technical team to deliver the best solution to students and partners. How do you see the role of technique and innovation in OLL’s business, what are the major costs for those innovation to be implemented?  

Adam Brimo : We have an amazing professional engineer and technical team, and strive to provide our partners with the best experience. Our platform is designed on the basis of social constructivism, and all structures must align with the social constructivism. Therefore, we need to keep investing to stay ahead in the market.

For example, we need to continuously strengthen the design of courses to provide high-quality courses to our 2.6 million platform users; we also need to continue to develop new functions to give learners better interactive experience. 

Also, it is particularly important to ensure our partners can design high-quality online education courses for students by simply operating our software.

We recently developed Learning Design Template, which allows education providers to provide students with more online activities. For example, create an ice break game to allow participants to introduce themselves to each other; or give opportunities for participants to take turns in the role of teachers to teach and promote learning, which can achieve a higher level of combining theory and practice.

It is worth noting that education providers can now directly log on our website, choose the payment method, then they can start using our platform to design their online courses. Such a model may be more common in other industries, but as a software-as-a-service provider in online education industry, this model is relatively novel. We hope that this model can bring more convenience to more small and medium-sized education providers.

In addition to the platform development costs mentioned above, other costs include employee salaries, engaging industry experts and administrative costs. 

ACB News: Can you please give us a picture of the company in 3 years?  Will the company become profitable then?

Adam Brimo : At this stage, we do not provide financial forecasts, but to be sure, OpenLearning is capable of achieving profitability. The current thing is we need to keep in investing. For example, what we are developing now is to provide a software-as-a-service for education providers, which requires a lot of development costs. The investment at this stage is to build a solid foundation for future profitability. Our project income is based on revenue-shared model; these projects will bring more income to OpenLearning in the future.

In the future, OpenLearning will continue to maintain its leading position in the online education industry in Australia and Southeast Asia. As the largest online education service provider in Australia and Southeast Asia, we will focus on the Australian and Malaysian markets, and we will also cooperate with educational institutions in Singapore and Indonesia to discuss further opportunities

Social Recognition:

ACB News: OpenLearning provides micro-credential certificate as well as online degree to knowledge seekers. It is well-recognized by many Australian employers. However, for international students and learners, it might be harder to get full-recognition by their own country employers. Do you think that an online degree is good enough to be recognized by other countries? How does OLL see the future opportunity in this industry? 

Adam Brimo : The recognition of online learning courses varies from country to country. In Australia, if you choose online study to complete the degree, there is no difference for Australian employers; because employers value the quality of the entire degree and course.

Most domestic students in Australia prefer to choose online learning to complete their postgraduate courses, which can save money and study time to a greater extent.

For other countries, the recognition of online education and offline education is indeed different.

For example, applying for the job in public sectors in certain countries requires the courses must be completed on campus. In terms of the future development of the entire industry, many courses have now begun to provide a combination of online courses and offline courses. I think the best solution for international students is to choose a combination of online and offline courses. For example, students can complete 1-2 years of online education courses in other countries, and then come to Australia to complete 2 years studies. In this way, you can save a lot of living expenses and study time, and successfully complete the transition phase of studying abroad, while also ensuring that students can get the best learning experience.

ACB News: OpenLearning cooperates with UNSW global to deliver the UNSW transition program online which will commence in March 2021. Does this mean that international students can apply for UNSW through OpenLearning’s transition program and get admitted by UNSW? How does this work and bring benefits to future international students?

Adam Brimo : International students can apply for the UNSW Transition Program Online on the OpenLearning platform. If they successfully apply for the program and successfully complete 4 months of online learning, they will be admitted to UNSW. UNSW will issue a letter of acceptance (COE) to international students who have successfully applied.

More information is available here: 

https://www.unswglobal.unsw.edu.au/programs-courses/foundation-studies/transition-online/ 

OpenLearning, as the platform service provider of the project, will be responsible for the design of the entire project. UNSW Global is responsible for project marketing, quality assurance and course content. The advancement of this project can successfully shorten the language transition period for international students. The traditional transition course used to be offline teaching and lasted one year, while the project we launched is 4 months of online learning. OpenLearning will ensure the interactivity and timeliness of the entire learning process. Students will get feedback from the teacher on the same day and will form a study group. Each study group will have a tutor to assist students during their learning process.

Course quality:

ACB News: Compared with on campus courses, online courses are not so well-designed by some providers. Some of students might feel online courses are hard to get feedbacks from teachers, get interaction with their peers. It is easy to get distracted as everyone closes their cameras. Employers might be worried about the course quality. You also mentioned some problems in your speech in other media, so how does OLL deal with the course quality challenges and ensure students can be satisfied to obtain the expected results?

Adam Brimo : As you mentioned, traditional online courses are not well-designed. Most online courses require students to watch online videos, complete online tests, download slides, or use ZOOM videos to teach students. It is impossible to achieve the desired learning result.

The platform that OpenLearning creates is different. We believe that all expected teaching outcome need to be achieved through online projects or online activities. These activities include online presentation, online discussions, and sharing of participants’ idea and so on. The tutors need to provide timely feedback. We also encourage the formation of a 5-person study group to learn more efficiently.

Through the platform of OpenLearning, education providers will provide students with a more interactive social learning platform, instead of traditional online learning method, which is the lecturer gives a speech, and students act as the audience.

For example, if a student completes an online course that requires them to spend 150 hours on the course, then the time the student spends on our platform participating in activities, participating in discussions, will be automatically recorded by the platform database, and used as an important factor of performance evaluation. In addition, teachers can capture the performance of students in time on the platform, and further understand whether students actively participate in course learning. This is precisely what is missing in offline learning.

On the OpenLearning platform, all courses are result-oriented, and the activities and projects we design must align with the goals that the courses want to achieve.

This also corresponds to what we mentioned earlier that OpenLearning provides a social constructivism platform that allows students to consolidate their knowledge through project-based, activity-based learning and achieve a better result.

Resource integration

ACB News: Many online education providers operate individually and industry resources are relatively fragmented. OpenLearning is doing pretty well in collaboration. Last October, OpenLearning organized a micro-credential symposium; can you provide more information about this symposium? How do you see the future development in online education industry?

Adam Brimo : OpenLearning held two micro-credential online symposiums in last October. We invited industry leaders, business partners, industry experts and industry pioneers from universities, professional organizations and the corporate to share their views on micro-credential, their experience on using OpenCreds, their implementation strategy of micro-credential and the employer’s expectations for Micro-credentials.

(Editor's note: Guests are from the University of New South Wales, University of Wollongong, University of Tasmania, Deakin University, CPA Australia, TAFE, Le Cordon Bleu Australia, RedHill Education)

We organized two micro-credential online symposiums in Australia and Malaysia respectively, and both achieved satisfactory results.

One of the core values of OpenLearning is to build close relationship with business partners in order to provide them with the best online course solution. Especially for higher education providers, to obtain a better result, we need to keep abreast of the latest developments in the industry and get feedback from our partners.

(Editor's note: OpenLearning currently has 2.6 million users on its platform, and partners with 167 universities and institutions, including several higher education institutions and professional organization in Australia and Malaysia.)

OpenLearning aims at outlining the current trend of micro-credential in Australia and Malaysia, initiating a cross-sector dialogue on micro-credential, providing education providers with opportunities for mutual learning and cooperation, and striving to help more organizations build their micro-credential courses.

By communicating with different education institutions and industry experts, we can foresee that more projects will be completed online in the future. The epidemic has boosted the development of the entire industry, but after the epidemic has passed, I believe that more opportunities will appear in the online education industry in the future.

Editor’s Note : The old Chinese saying goes: It is learning from the content and then knowing the deficiencies, teaching and then knowing the difficulties. Knowing the deficiencies, then start to self-reflect, which is corresponding with what Mr. Adam Brimo said, the interactive social learning method can truly focus on students and better improve students' online learning experience.

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