Do Paywalls Change the Engagement Equation? - The Huffington Post
Jake Batsell seems to think so, saying that while advertising-driven models of digital journalism aim to maximize page views, when news organizations introduce online subscriptions "it reconfigures the benchmarks for success."
Which leads to the question: What are online readers willing to pay for digital content?
It's one of those complex issues troubling publishers, editors and reporters who have to worry about producing enticing content to compete with the plethora of digital fare, and, ensure the success of their revenue streams.
Via
Lelio Simi
The Economist reports on the slow but unstoppable revolution in education, where free courses and MOOCs seem to be both expanding the present course offerings while competing with their traditional expensive courses. But is it really so?
Read some of these passages from this recent article entitled: "Learning New Lessons":
"Some of Europe’s best schools are determinedly unruffled. Oxford says that MOOCs “will not prompt it to change anything”, adding that it “does not see them as revolutionary in anything other than scale”. Cambridge even says it is “nonsense” to see MOOCs as a rival; it is “not in the business of online education”.
Such universities are likely to continue to attract the best (and richest) applicants who want personal tuition and the whiff of research in the air. They have other benefits too, including sublime architecture, better marriage partners and a huge career boost.
For these places, MOOCs are chiefly a marketing opportunity: once customers taste the lectures, they may pay for the rest of the bundle.
But elsewhere change is likely to be more disruptive."
"...One potential casualty is the cross-subsidy between teaching and research.
MOOCs will make it far harder to overcharge students, especially undergraduates, in order to subsidise research that nobody else will pay for. Some universities will have to specialise to survive—perhaps dropping indifferent lecturing or teaching to concentrate on something else, such as brilliantly set and marked examinations. Online platforms will also allow clusters of universities to pool resources, such as providing first-year undergraduate lecture courses..."
"Even if MOOCs can coin sound academic currency, they must also make real money. Though marginal costs are low, designing enticing online material is costly. Non-profit ventures such as edX want to break even. Others have investors to satisfy.
The first way of generating revenue is a “freemium” model, in which the course is free but the graduation certificate is paid-for. Udacity, for example, charges $89 for an exam invigilated by Pearson VUE, an electronic-testing firm; its parent company is a part-owner of this newspaper.
A second model is to charge potential employers a fee for spotting suitable recruits among the students. Coursera charges for referrals to its best students.
A third option is to license online courses to universities to help them improve their offerings to students. Ms Koller foresees a blended approach, in which universities mix MOOCs and in-house provision to expand the range of degrees they offer."
Informative. Resourceful. 8/10
Full article: http://www.economist.com/news/international/21568738-online-courses-are-transforming-higher-education-creating-new-opportunities-best
(Image credit: w4.stern.nyu.edu)