"there is a delicate balance between actions that increase the likelihood of remaining perpetually smaller and poorer, and those that enable you to grow income and pursue opportunities, and whatever you think about the LLE, it presents an opportunity." buff.ly/EGeFtWr

"the international online student market is one where the scale of the opportunity somewhat clouds the realities. It is an area that many in UK higher education do not always fully understand."

"Under the iceberg, so to speak...institutions are attempting to get their house in order to effectively support the delivery of shorter, flexible provision, adopting new platforms and seeking to better coordinate their existing portfolios of short courses."

"online education has had a couple of decades of being considered as a newer form of higher education, but this does not make it any less prone to developing rigid orthodoxies about how things should be done."

"For universities considering their online education strategies, it is important not to overlook the ways in which online education might support market penetration and not simply diversification. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive"

"there remains only a small number of institutions that can be said to have a significant portfolio of online undergraduate provision....but...there have been some small signals of an increasing number...willing to..launch online undergraduate degrees."

"some may need to break away from the idea that there is essentially one main way to do online course marketing and recruitment. There are other strategies, other approaches and other ideas of merit."

"on the surface the international online education market is very appealing...but the international online student market is one where the scale of the opportunity somewhat clouds the realities." www.neilmosley.com/blog/key-mis... #onlinelearning #onlineeducation #highereducation

"there has been a growing confluence between government priorities & wider narratives, leading to greater confidence to develop shorter forms of provision. Helpfully, this also offers a means of diversification in challenging financial times."

"I’ve begun to increasingly question whether the playbook for online student marketing and recruitment has become too formulaic...and whether this is limiting recruitment opportunities and constraining universities from being more competitive."

"Universities need to think of online learning as a long game, rather than a short-term opportunity, and insulate their efforts against another common source of waste..new leaders abandoning existing projects in favour of their own ideas or visions."

"one clear trend..is an increase in the number of OPM and university partnerships coming to an end...as we have progressed into the 2020s, the number has grown markedly." www.neilmosley.com/blog/2025-wr... #onlinelearning #onlineeducation #highereducation

"20% learnt about their chosen institution/programme via a ChatGPT or similar AI. This is a useful barometer of changing search behaviour and aligns with wider trends towards AI search usage, and conversational search queries."

"For online education as a whole, I cannot escape the feeling that we have reached, or are reaching, an inflection point that demands some divergence from the methods, tactics and common beliefs that have typified this area for some time."

"It is easier to quantify costs but harder to consider opportunity costs of pursuing cost cutting. My worry is that too few are striking the right balance between managing costs and looking to increase income, or when they do their efforts are formulaic."

"In terms of specialisation, there are universities that focus on areas of strength, but there are others which...have tended to develop portfolios in predictable subject areas pursuing homogeneity through online learning rather than specialisation."

"a job-role-centred, competency-based approach requires that skills are accurately mapped to roles, that learning experiences genuinely build those skills, that assessments are credible and robust, and that the outcomes are demonstrable in workplace performance."

"While some EdTech companies position their advantage as offering a prompt-free interface that does not rely on user prompting skills, this also needs to be underpinned by confidence that the company has a nuanced understanding of learning and teaching."

"One can’t help but think that the UK higher education sector as a whole, is, at times, mired in orthodoxy, constantly reaching for solutions that maintain the status quo or preserve the time-honoured campus experience."

"The survey results show that over 75% of people would look to enrol on a different online course or just not enrol in course at all. Only a limited number would look to enrol on on-campus courses as an alternative"

Big breaking news...Coursera and Udemy have agreed to merge their online education businesses. This will mean Udemy is no more and will be subsumed under the Coursera brand, with current CEO Greg Hart continuing as the CEO of this merged entity. investor.coursera.com/news/news-de...

"The opportunity that the LLE may present will stand little chance of being grasped or properly tested if there is no awareness, understanding or clear value proposition among potential audiences." www.neilmosley.com/blog/will-th... #onlinelearning #onlineeducation #highereducation

"The small moves in the online undergraduate degree market witnessed this quarter are a welcome divergence...and if student choice of study mode is to increase, then it will involve a different calibration between risk and caution than exists at the moment."

"There have been a number of newsworthy developments in UK higher education as a whole which, although not directly influencing online education, have broader impacts. Alongside this, there has also been a range of online learning developments of note"

Are you studying for a doctorate at a UK university via a programme that is wholly or mostly online? If so, please take part in an anonymous, 10 min survey about the impacts of online doctoral study on wellbeing and share the link lancasteruni.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_....

"it’s really positive to see some dedicated research on online learners being put out in the UK..it has the potential to support a better understanding of online learning, and support institutions more directly with messages they are trying to get across."

Overall, UK universities need to raise their game significantly when it comes to using their websites as product marketing and recruitment tools, but shorter forms of provision are often where I witness the most neglect and the most egregious examples.

"With a growing number of UK universities entering or considering online education as part of their diversification strategy, now is a timely moment to reflect on the current state of the OPM market and the key players operating in UK higher education."

"When this government manages to snap out of what feels like an extended political version of The Play That Goes Wrong, it would be wise to give more serious consideration to the role online learning can play in its agenda." www.neilmosley.com/blog/2025-q3... #onlinelearning #onlineeducation

"While some EdTech companies position their advantage as offering a prompt-free interface that doesn't rely on prompting skills, this also needs to be underpinned by confidence that the company has a nuanced & sophisticated understanding of learning and teaching."

"one wonders what the impact would be if UK students had greater options and more explicit and deliberate flexibility within a campus anchored undergraduate degree"

"as things stand, disaggregation of online degree provision is happening largely at PGT level, and given the current online student market and the exclusionary nature of the LLE for online education, I would not expect this to change anytime soon"

“UK higher education sometimes feels as though it’s trying to work out how to make horses go faster, rather than exploring more counterintuitive, behaviourally informed research methods to improve and innovate the experience.” A very interesting read

"There is a certain orthodoxy in how the sector builds a case for doing something new or different, and it tends to be overly reliant on user (student) research focused on asking people what they want."

"What has been evident this quarter is a more concentrated focus on developing propositions and courses that align with the prevailing narrative of recent years, education as a utility for professional development and skills, particularly in short forms."

"Universities face various questions when starting to develop a portfolio of online courses and degrees. One key decision … is whether to establish a separate online arm with dedicated functions and responsibility for new degrees and, potentially, legacy ones."

"For Coursera, the challenge is one of credibility, not just growing learner numbers, but proving that its courses and credentials translate into meaningful skills and workplace impact."

"With the summer behind us, it’s time to look back at some key developments in the last quarter in UK higher education, and online education in particular..there has been no shortage of relevant and noteworthy developments over the past quarter" www.neilmosley.com/blog/2025-q3...

"A challenge..is the extent to which EdTech companies and their products can genuinely offer distinct benefits over general-purpose generative AI tools for many of the functions they are developing."

"It would be obvious to point to the Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE)..as a stimulus..but it would be easy to overstate its impact...The funding is focused on disaggregated UG provision, which has minimal presence in the UK HE lifelong learning landscape."

"AI features are reshaping established EdTech products used by universities, while a wide array of consumer AI technologies are being adopted personally by students and staff alike."

"Coursera is moving toward a competency-based education model in which the unit of organisation is not a degree title like “data science” but the job role itself. Skills, knowledge, and assessments are mapped directly to the realities of that role."

A very timely post from @neilmosley.bsky.social on online Uni's, reaffirming what I've been saying about the need to consider online fully (and properly) and not try and shoehorn it into an existing structure & workload: www.neilmosley.com/blog/separat...

" while the choices universities face in operationalising their online course portfolios may lead them down different paths, given projected needs, developing to better serve a mature student audience, motivated by professional dev., would be a wise investment."

"The shift towards a portfolio focused on careers and employment presents a fundamental challenge for universities, both in being desirable partners that can align with this shift and in facing the competition Coursera presents as an alternative study destination."

"Some university short course webpages are among the best examples you’ll find anywhere of pages most likely to achieve a 100% bounce rate — countless examples lack the basics students need: pricing, start dates, time commitment, duration and eligibility criteria."

What could be better than learning about The Beatles online from the University of Liverpool... #onlinelearning #onlineeducation #highereducation buff.ly/3pzbPyO?

"Given everything happening in UK HE, and the increasingly competitive nature of the online education market, the international TNE online market is only going to become more important." www.neilmosley.com/blog/interna... #onlinelearning #onlineeducation #highereducation

"Universities face various questions when starting to develop a portfolio of online courses and degrees. One key decision … is whether to establish a separate online arm with dedicated functions and responsibility for new degrees and, potentially, legacy ones."

Big news in UK higher education this morning with the news that University of Greenwich and University of Kent are set to merge - would not be surprised to see more of this in the next 12 months - www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...