An interesting new report from the New Media Consortium and the Educause Learning Initiative discusses the barriers facing higher education. The challenges of “competing models of higher education” is considered daunting.

It states that the challenge to traditional Higher Education “is becoming less about brick-and-mortar institutions feeling threatened by free online educational resources (e.g. MOOCs) and more about the traditional approaches of these institutions no longer appealing to students. Universities are being challenged at all angles (including by the [U.S. Department] of Ed and their move to redefine the credit hour to include amount of work represented by learning outcomes) to update their degree programs & curriculum to embrace more unconventional practices, such as competency-based and flexible degree programs and more”.

This concurs with our view that higher education needs to move beyond outdated notions of seat time and credit hours and focus on what students can demonstrate they know and can do as measured by learning outcomes.