Professor Timothy Savage:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to attend its discussion on studying at university through online learning. We look forward to contributing in any way we can. I am the associate dean for online education at Trinity College. I am accompanied by Mr. John Coman, who is the secretary to the College. The Provost, Dr. Prendergast, who is unable to attend, sends his sincere apologies.

I shall outline my background. I have been a lecturer and assistant professor in the area of technology and learning at Trinity College since 2002, and was made an associate dean 15 months ago. That means my post is a relatively new appointment and a new college officership.

As Ireland's university on the world stage, Trinity is recognised for academic excellence and a transformative student experience. Trinity is embracing online education at a strategic level, through both formal accredited courses of study and MOOCs, as my colleagues have mentioned here. We see online education as a response to the important globalised higher education space. It also allows us to leverage the potential of these new educational forms and paradigms as part of our vision as a university of global consequence.

Specifically, online education allows us to increase access to and participation in higher education through the flexibility that online education offers; access new markets and students, both locally and globally; share and disseminate the excellence in research and teaching of our staff; and enhance and promote innovation in teaching and learning across all of our courses. This is one of the themes of our presentation. We do not regard online education as something that can be separated from the day-to-day activities of third level institutions. In 20 years' time, we will no longer speak of e-learning but simply of learning. That is a key issue.
I propose to address the specific matter of online education for accredited courses because this is a distinction we make. Our recently published strategic plan for 2014-19 states that we will increase online learners to 1,000 within five years and promote a diverse student community. This strategy builds on a pilot initiative that has been running under my leadership since 2013. Our online students are fully registered Trinity College students who take a fully accredited and wholly online course. The courses include the development of high quality online materials and a best practice instructional design model. The students interact with their peers in a vibrant learning community and with the course team via a range of synchronous and asynchronous technologies, including live whole class video conferences. We are trying to deliver a research-led online learning experience. As such, we go some way towards enhancing the student experience by keeping class sizes small and having a high level of interaction, discourse and dialogue. We are successfully extending this model into the online space.
This year, as part of the pilot initiative, we launched a postgraduate diploma in applied social studies and we will launch a further three postgraduate courses in 2015. These courses are targeted at areas of national and international demand that align with our areas of research-led expertise and strength. Our online course offerings will focus on the needs of the knowledge economy and lifelong learning by providing a high quality Trinity College educational experience to learners who require additional qualifications for progression in their existing career or to start a new career. The flexibility of online education allows students to study while maintaining their existing commitments to employment, family or social life.
Trinity College is committed to ensuring the online student experience matches the research-led Trinity College education based on academic rigour and built on the existing culture of scholarship, innovation and creativity, as well as an understanding of global best practice in online teaching and learning. In brief, quality is paramount in the online learning space. While brand recognition may allow one to attract learners in the first instance, the nature and form of the Internet means that if one makes low quality offerings, one's reputation will soon take a severe dive in the online global space. One cannot take short cuts with quality. To this end, we have established an online education unit and invested in experienced instructional design staff and multimedia developers. As I indicated, we have a specific instructional design model.
On massive open online courses or MOOCs, I do not have much more to offer to the comments of my colleagues on this issue. While MOOCs have been substantially over-hyped, they have a distinctive and crucial role to play. MOOCs are fundamentally different from formally accredited online courses. They provide a course of study, delivered free of charge over the Internet, to a large or massive group of learners. The learners, however, do not register as students of the institution offering the course and no formal accreditation is provided, although statements of participation and completion are commonly available.
Massive open online courses offer an opportunity to universities to disseminate their research and excellence in teaching to a wide global audience. A high-quality course raises the identity and profile of the institution and the academic staff delivering the course. It has a positive impact on the adoption of technology enhanced learning within the institution. MOOCs also have the potential to fulfil diverse learner needs in areas such as informal learning, unaccredited continuing professional development and the investigation of a potential area of study, and to experience the quality of teaching in a particular institution.
As has been noted, Trinity College has delivered its first massive open online course, Irish Lives in War and Revolution: Exploring Ireland's History 1912-1923, on the FutureLearn platform. Some 20,000 learners registered for the course, which was very well received by learners and generated substantial interest internationally. From my perspective as associate dean, the course has had a significant impact in the college's school of history. The academics involved, who may not have been the most up to speed in terms of technology enhanced learning, have not only embraced the course but are working with me on another project to gather archives of technological artefacts and develop a community of learners in Ireland in this area.
Studying at university through online learning is a rapidly changing and dynamic area and we must think globally in this regard. New players and technologies are constantly emerging. On the other side of the equation, however, it is important to recognise that learners who come to us in higher education are e-learners before they step through the door. We need to adapt, therefore, not only in terms of new entrants and online and informal education but also to align existing approaches to technology and learning with the new learners as they come through. Online education in all its guises will become a normal function of a leading university. Accordingly, online education in Trinity College is not viewed as a silo activity. Rather, it will be embedded within the institution to provide a high-quality educational experience to a wide and diverse community of learners while ensuring the adoption of innovative technology teaching and learning across all of our courses.