We explain how the new Online Education Hub for online courses will increase possibilities of online education.
What is the Online Education Hub?
As part of the University of Oxford's investment in Digital Transformation, the Online Education Hub (OEH) has been created to help academic departments achieve their ambitions for online education. There is growing demand and potential for online education, and the OEH will help the academic departments to maximise the potential of online teaching. The new hub will help widen participation and increase access to an Oxford education by supporting departments to design, build, market, deliver and manage world leading online courses.
What are online courses?
Online courses are defined as courses with at least 50% of teaching delivered online. The OEH works with both smaller non-accredited courses and larger awards courses, mostly at a postgraduate level.
Why has the OEH been created?
One of the main objectives is to widen participation and accessibility. Online education can reach a global audience and non-traditional students, making the University more inclusive to learners who face barriers to attend on-campus courses, such as geographical distance, financial constraints, or personal circumstances.
The hub will increase innovation in education, and position Oxford as a world leader in online teaching. The OEH will work to increase intellectually curious citizenry, shaping public debate via research informed online teaching and focus on developing courses with public impact.
The OEH has a focus on sustainable education. Online teaching can lessen environmental impact, reducing emissions compared to in person teaching. The hub will support departments to create diversified models of teaching which generate new revenue streams by attracting new markets and audiences, offering competitive pricing, and scalable and sustainable courses.
How does the OEH work?
The OEH offers a range of services and support to academic departments that want to create or improve online courses. The team combines market insights with specific individual needs of each department to help them develop the best online courses for their students and teachers. The hub also works with other stakeholders, businesses and organizations who may benefit from its expertise on creating online courses.
The end-to-end service begins with student discovery; understanding what motivates them and what types of online education best suits them. Through the course design and development process, the OEH works to help implement best practices for online teaching. The OEH helps reach the right students through targeted marketing campaigns and offers advice on student support, course delivery, and assessing the impact of courses.
What is next?
The OEH team is currently working to support academics, online students, members of the public, businesses and researchers who may benefit from the power and possibilities of online teaching.
If you would like to know more about the online education opportunities at the University of Oxford, please email mat.tinker@conted.ox.ac.uk
