Flexible Frameworks for Blended Learning in Higher Education

Pressures to adopt new technology-based online solutions to enable increased flexibility in delivering higher education have accelerated in pace. The primary reasons for this growth concern ongoing debates about costs of residential on-campus courses and resulting economies of scale; demands for more student-centred and flexible approaches, providing students with more choices in learning; technology ubiquity, portability and their affordances providing solutions to identified student needs; and the impact of MOOC experiences and lessons learnt, rolling back into mainstream open and on-campus teaching. Based on case study analysis, this paper examines experiences in developing open and blended learning solutions for predominantly campus-based education and identifies longer-term impacts on changing core practices. The first case explores the impact of distance and open education courses and course resources and activities re-purposed to replace conventional on-campus teaching; the second a re-engineered continuing professional education course converted to distance and blended learning; the third describes how a conventional course structure, quality assurance and sustainable improvements were made through the introduction of blended and online solutions; and the forth case explores the impact of an institution?s use of MOOCs as a catalyst to effect changes in mainstream courses and programs. Arising from the cases described, the paper identifies key concepts that support improved opportunities for success in adopting open and blended learning. The paper concludes by outlining a curriculum design framework, based on recent research and practice that facilitates sustainable and transferable improvements to learning and teaching in universities adopting open and blended learning strategies.