Modern customers and open universities: can open universities develop a course model in which students become the co-creators of value?

Abstract

Marketing specialists have recently redefined the roles customers and enterprises play in the economy. Modern customers are connected, informed, mobile, educated and internationally oriented. They seek enterprises that empower them to co--construct personalized experiences. This view of the customer-enterprise relationship has a great impact on the ways markets function. Open universities can apply developed principles in marketing to optimize the value of their degree programs. A capita selecta course within the Open University of the Netherlands has given students the opportunity to personalize learning. Within the limits of the formal Master program, students were encouraged to define personal learning goals, study tasks and work to be delivered and formally assessed. In this paper, the course is analysed according to the principles of customerenterprise relations, and I explore the question: Can open universities develop a course model in which students become the co--creators of value? 2 IntroductionOpen universities have played an important role in providing access to higher education to those without a previous degree. In developed countries, this traditional target group of students is shrinking-sometimes dramatically, as was the case at the Open University of Hong Kong (Butcher, 2013), sometimes gradually, as is the case at the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL) (Moerkerke, 2014). At the same time, the need for lifelong learning for professionals is growing, and this has been a long--term global trend (World Bank, 2003). Recently, the Dutch Minister for Education emphasized the need for courses and degree programs that will optimally prepare professionals for the roles they aspire to or already hold (Ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschappen, 2014). Some of these learners may enrol in bachelor's programs, but more are aspiring to enrol in master's programs or postgraduate courses relevant to their professional development.This paper addresses the question whether educational services for professional development demand a change in course models. From an economic perspective, open universities course models have been traditionally part of a product--driven relationship with the students. However, according to marketing theories for modern customers, this product--driven customer-enterprise relationship should be replaced by a service--oriented relationship. In order to survive in the modern global economy, enterprises need to see the individual customer as a partner. According to Auvinen and Smith (2012), the standard instructional design methodologies for professional online education are challenged by the concept of a service--oriented relationship between universities and students. They claim that economic value in lifelong learning is not created by effective provision and planning of courses but rather through a continuous dialogue with learners.I explore first grounding theories on the relationship between customers and enterprises in a modern web--based society. These econo...

Editorial

“…Those papers have proved popular with our readership and we are happy to continue this relationship bringing more of the most up to the minute research from the European distance education community. In this issue we have four papers that have come out the 2014 EADTU annual conference: a paper on the design of MOOCs (Warburton & Mor, 2015); a paper on a topic that often goes hand in hand with a discussion of MOOCs and the accreditation of learning: badging as a recognition of learner achievement (Law, 2015); a discussion of the changing role of students in a neoliberal model of distance education (Moerkerke, 2015) and finally a case study of the use of Open Educational Resources on a nursing programme (Elf, Ossiannilsson, Neljesjö, & Jansson, 2015). This issue also contains one independent case study (Brudermann, 2015) which explores online learning in language learning.…”

“…The students in Elf's study also felt overwhelmed by the resources available to them and needed help in knowing how to select what they needed. These nursing students were not from an academic background and their learning skills needed to be developed as they studied, and they are, in this way, very different from many of the students in Law's study and Moerkerke's (2015) study, discussed below. Elf et al argue that the need for constant professional updating by health professionals necessitates them being able to evaluate and use a variety of online materials; therefore teaching them to use OERs in their undergraduate training delivers a professional skill.…”

“…The final case study from the EADTU selection focuses on a quite different model of course design and applies it to a Masters course with a very small student population. Moerkerke (2015) starts by observing that many open and distance education universities that were originally set up to deliver degree level education to people who had not been able to engage with this through a face-to-face university are now delivering mainly to graduates who are taking distance education courses for professional development. He argues that the traditional model of course design, a product driven model of customer enterprise relationship needs to be replaced by a service orientated relationship model where students/customers are co-creators of value.…”