Royal Roads University Open Courseware Initiative

Background

A pitch is presented to make the case for Royal Roads University to establish an Open Courseware initiative.

Analysis

Referring to the successful open courseware initiative at MIT, the pitcher presents some compelling arguments in favour of her venture. She suggests that providing open access to courses will help with student and faculty recruitment and the marketing of Royal Roads’ high-quality programming thereby enhancing the university’s reputation. Additional benefits of using open courseware are also mentioned including increased global access and contributions being made to the building of a learning society. The pitcher also sets up and proceeds to knock down what could be the two greatest arguments against the open courseware initiative: a possible decrease in tuition paid by those who are content to learn for free and the chance that others could steal content and profit by resale. According to the pitcher, academic credit is not given to students who don’t pay tuition and course content is subject to copyright laws.

Interestingly, only seven minutes were used to pitch the idea and, as an EVA, I felt the pitcher left me hanging with too many unanswered questions. For example, the pitch provides no information regarding how the plans will be carried out, so an EVA is left wondering what types of resources are necessary to start and maintain the venture. Since the initiative has already been implemented at MIT, it would  help to have highlighted what kind of return was seen on their investment. Lastly, while the pitcher promotes Royal Roads as a place of innovation, specifics regarding the qualifications personnel that will potentially run the venture were missing from the pitch.

Overall, I would not be willing to risk my investment capital on this proposition mostly because I think MIT already has the stronghold on this market. No offense to Royal Roads, but MIT is a well-known and prestigious institute. If people simply want to use Open Courseware for learning, they’ll turn to MIT first. After all, it is free. While I acknowledge that Royal Roads might be rewarded with a modest increase in student recruitment through this venture, I think there might be other ways to promote and market a university if they wish to increase the number of paying students.