Online Programs and their global impact

By: Professor Lili Saghafi Oct. 12th , 2016

It has been years that I am working in this industry of Higher Education in many different parts of the world. Since the new era of online education appeared I am always thinking that higher education institutions that are not adaptable to this new era are missing opportunities. This market that is opened while ago is a universal market, this ability to think beyond traditional age group when it comes to distance education is significantly changes the face of our universities, which many of them are still fanatical by 18- to 25-year-olds students. Considering learning never stops at age 25, Continuing Education is a fact, that no one can ignore.

With busy lifestyle and consuming mentality, that brings more focus on daily jobs, new skills learning in old fashioned ways are hard to achieve. Now there is opportunities in front of people that prefer to reach it in different manners and not in traditional classes, and there is going to be huge impact to global education market.

Nowadays, universities are using MOOCs in much more strategic ways. They teach their students, to create passageways into their fundamental programs, they work in different ways with many employers and transform the way they offer training and development services to their employees. In this way these institutions / companies attract massive audience. This is great to give everyone chance to reach to the skills they want, at any time they want, as many times they want.

MOOCs , online courses and online programs going to grow significantly , and their credibility and their value is going to significantly increase too .Lots of universities are starting to build sequence of courses that create valuable educational experience, and some of those credentials are going to be professionally accredited.I think in compare with what is going to be, in education, we are absolutely in the primitive ages.

I worked with many universities. Each has many faculties, many academics, and I am always trying to explain and inspire them to think that they don’t need to create and design by themselves alone for their courses or their subject area. Let them know that by join forces , they can learn from each other and that a joined program approach and working together has global impact.

Future is what we make out of present. Let’s join to make it more pleasant when it comes to learning and expanding our skills.

Happy Learning.

Professor Lili Saghafi