VetEd.Net

Business model

Traditional business models?

Christensen, Aaron and Clark concluded that the economic failure of numerous online programs is caused by wrong business models. More often than not we were using traditional business models that are not suitable for up-to-date technology-supported collaboration and education. Therefore, they suggested, we should develop a business model that turns relative weaknesses of online collaboration and education (compared to the incumbent) into strengths (Christensen, Aaron, Clark, 2001).

New business model – the model of success

Quality control

Maintaining quality starts with defining a purpose (mission), desired results in a 1- to 5-year period (vision), actions we will do to achieve those results (strategy) and constant assessment of progress. In an environment where informational and communicational technologies and practices create “rapid, profound, unpredictable, and likely discontinuous” changes (Duderstadt, 2001), quality has become a “moving target” (Moore, Maintaining Quality in Online Education, 2007).

In such an ever-changing environment, quality control can be based on:

Administrative and academic procedures

We have tools to do all we need, broadband Internet, and a majority of users ready for a change. That is a good starting point. However, intensive constructive collaboration and development of shared digital curriculum require a whole array of tasks administrators will face. The most important tasks are (MacKeogh, Fox, 2009):

Moodle 2.0 – an integral part of Web 2.0

Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) provides a structured environment in which a teacher makes decisions on how, when and what will be learned while everything can be monitored and controlled. However, Moodle 2.0 is developed as an integral part of the Web 2.0 environment. Moodle now supports integration with external repositories of content such as Alfresco, Amazon S3, Box.net, File system on Server, Flickr, Google Docs, Mahara, MERLOT, Picasa, Remote Moodle sites, WebDAV servers, Wikimedia, YouTube, and with external Blogs and Google Application (Moodle.org, Repository Support, 2010).

Technological framework

A new Moodle Learning Management System (Moodle 2.0, 2010) now comes with the finalized Community Hub Framework (Moodle.org, Development:Community hub, 2010). Through such hubs, users from all participating institutions (each can have one or more independent Moodle sites and more/all can use the same Moodle installation) can easily find courses or communities of practice from partners in their network. Educators from different institutions can collaborate on course development or share course templates.