Guardian editorial on shift to online learning

 The situation on UK campus has got attention from journalists. Possibility of students not being allowed to travel home for Xmas is a headline item. Guardian has reported at length and today has an editorial, lengthy quote below - 

Now universities, as well as ministers, stand accused of recruiting students on a false prospectus, because of their reliance on the income from rents.

But a shift to online learning is only at best a partial solution. Students in Manchester and elsewhere are not thought to have caught the virus in lectures, but through social contacts. This contact with peers is part of the reason most people go to university, and would not automatically cease because in-person teaching has. Besides, many art, science and other courses require specialist equipment and can’t be taught remotely. There is also the question of knock-on effects for schools and colleges, because if lecture theatres are judged too dangerous to work and study in, where does that leave teachers and schools?

Final figures on the take-up of university places are not yet known. But predictions that the recruitment of international students would collapse due to Covid have not come true. This worst-case scenario having been avoided, universities must do all they can to ensure that students get the education they deserve, as well as obeying pandemic rules put in place to protect us all. But the greatest responsibility, as ever, lies with the government, whose job it is to make the test-and-trace system work. The future, as well as the present, depends on it.

This is not yet looking at the longer term issues. If online learning is accepted then will there be the same need for so many buildings? There is not just an issue of refunds because of a "false prospectus". If course mostly or partly online could it be cheaper? I still think the Guardian has a block on this sort of issue as there is a related conversation about news and print. There is still no rethink about Futurelearn and MOOC platforms. Peter Wilby might reconsider his take on Peter Horrocks and lecture on Fortress University. see previous posts.

While on repeating previous claims, just to explain some of my concern is from living in Exeter where the centre is now taken over by student accommodation . I cannot find any research on future numbers expected to be near campus most of the year. There are many other UK urban spaces with a similar situation. Guardian will report on UK. Meanwhile i will try to find out more about Exeter. Some of the buildings look solid enough to still be there 20 year time. How much HE will then be mostly online? The question is more or less allowed now in a newspaper.

Unlimited talk continues

In the Guardian today Nesrine Malik writes about the "cancel culture" and the dangers faced by Guardian columnists. I am most concered about the Fox #planetFOX attack on Jo Biden. Seems urgent to opposet this at every chance. Retweet #CNN for example.

But the Guardian concerns seem to prolong their struggle with the readers as they realise the web is read / write. Jeff Jarvis pointed this out a while ago but there is no longer a Media page so no reason to include his words in Guardian scope. Malik observes a wall between "discourse makers and discourse consumers" that dates from the model of print. She claims the public space has been digitised in the last decade but I think it was well advanced before then.

Guardian Unlimited Talk closed down in 2011, one Friday lunchtime. Guardian readers had ben able to start a topic and add comments. Staff never joined in.

Reporting on the MOOC /  social learning has been limited and hostile when in print. Peter Horrocks interview around Futurelearn contributed to pressure forcing him to resign. Guardian now moving online with format of star speaker and lecture. Not sure how this will work. They will probably go back to celeb events whenever normal is normal.

Before he worked for OU Peter Horrocks worked for BBC World Service. In his lecture at Durham on the Fortress University he also spoke about Fortress Journalism . I sort of remember discussions 5 -10 years ago when BBC and other news organisations claimed to consider models of citizen journalism or something similar. Maybe before that, OhmyNews in English not sure when

Will find out more dates. Meanwhile print journalism seems even more shut down than ever seemed possible.

Jack Schofield dates

Still thinking about when the Guardian began to think of the web and tech as negative. Current take very anti online. Went back to news story when Jack Schofield died earlier this year. Found dates

First column  1983

Computer Guardian   1985

Online  1994


Ask Jack  2000


Not sure when Online supplement closed . Media in 2011 but cannot find much else online.

Without a strong tech presence the drift of journalism back to print culture is a strong trend.

Roy Greenslade on print news, will it survive current crisis? probably not.

Have now found a blog from Roy Greenslade. Not in print by the way. At least I checked a print version of the Guardian. So this is the only newspaper I get, delivered every day. The news is online only though. Greenslade confirms what seems a reasonable guess.

Newsprint, the transmission of news by ink on paper, might not recover from the contagion in what could eventually be seen as a transformational moment for the 380-year British newspaper history.

Links to Press Gazette with interesting stats on online growth but not much about print. FT doing well for online subs, they do have valuable content.

Just to repeat some previous questions

If accepted that news moves online, why not report similar developments in education? Interview with Peter Horrocks and general take on the MOOC could be updated.

Citizen Journalism as in OhMynews also could be reconsidered. If there is no budget for reporting then trusting the audience could be an option. By the way , what happened with Guardian Unlimited Talk? Trashed one Friday lunchtime with no option for reader writers to backup their copy. What was that about? Jeff Jarvis, is he very expensive to continue a column?

more later