These developments all add to the tapestry of online education and it’s in new and different approaches to subject areas, less associated with online learning, where illumination can be found for those of us working in this field and any stale orthodoxies challenged.

One of the challenges with digital technologies in education is how they are utilised and most importantly what informs their use. Education is replete with bad and ill-informed ideas - if AI is built upon these or implemented in sympathy with them - we’ll fail our learners.

Its impact and potential future impact on education continues to be hugely debated, but I don’t want to wade into that bigger debate here, but rather explore the impact it is having on synchronous online learning, through the primary vehicle for that, video conferencing technologies.

If universities want to succeed in running an online distance learning portfolio in an increasingly competitive landscape then they can’t afford to neglect the importance of effective use of the web for their online courses.

There are enough signals to suggest that growth in online PGT students will increase and that this is a growing market. However, universities shouldn’t assume the fields are ripe to harvest given increasing supply, competition and the volatile times we are living through.

It’s clear that OPMs face a more difficult and competitive operating environment which makes it harder for them to deliver for universities…But the big question is whether the current operating environment and the headwinds being experienced will ultimately compel some of these companies to change how they operate.

My research highlighted that there are now over 3,250 postgraduate taught courses offered by UK universities. These are courses at Level 7 so qualifications such as MSc, MA, MBA, PgDip, PgCert etc, that are offered as fully online, or with an option to choose to study in that way.

Universities considering OPM partnerships now more than ever need to have a good understanding of the different players in the market, keep abreast of the shifting sands in this landscape and really do their due diligence.

For a great many there is quite some way to go from blossoming interest and growing sense of prioritisation to the level of learning design maturity I’ve described in this model.

Few would dispute that education is more complex now than it once was, especially due to becoming more entwined with digital technologies. There is a real sense that intentional, deliberate, well-thought out design of educational experiences is needed more than ever before due to the growing complexity that exists and technological developments.

It’s still difficult to see any serious competitors to the established big four and those reflecting on the experience of Aula, may be even more reluctant to bet on an upstart company to provide such a central piece of the digital campus.

Whilst all of these announcements focus around growth and profitability of private companies working in online education, what transcends all of this news is the demand and supply for online education and a changing overall landscape.

These types of partnerships are only set to grow in the coming years and with that we will see greater scrutiny and debate. This may lead to different partnership models emerging beyond the traditional 10-year, 50%+ revenue share. Fee-for-service models and incubator approaches that intentionally build university capabilities may become more common.

In essence what characterises all of this advice is deliberate, strategic, well-informed and thought-through decision making in relation to MOOC platform partnerships. Some universities have not always been very rigorous in this respect.

In online education the lack of consideration of the social dimension will not only result in a reductive experience, it will also have the potential to stifle participation and involvement, and in that sense be counterproductive.

It shouldn’t be controversial to conclude that there was continuity but the teaching and study experience was hugely variable and in some cases problematic and suboptimal.

The promise of data will never be truly realised if there isn’t skill to design the means of gathering relevant and useful information related to the learning process, and the conditions and capabilities of taking that information and doing something with it.

Too often programmes are not connected, unified pathways but a collection of modules with some loose and unclear relationship to each other.

Unfortunately, what I think is becoming increasingly evident here in the UK and further afield is a digital education research field that earnestly pursues a cause but not truth. It believes itself to be righteous and this blinds it, and can make it insular and exclusionary.

The ascendency of Moodle and Blackboard is increasingly under threat. There is growing adoption of the two other big VLE players in Canvas and Brightspace, as well as the adoption of newer products like Aula.