Thought Leaders in Online Education: Jon Mott, Chief Learning Officer, Learning Objects (Part 3)

Sramana Mitra: Who are some of the good showcases of your technology? Which institutions or organisations?

Jon Mott: Currently, we’re working with University of Maryland University College (UMUC) on implementing a next generation transcript that changes the game. Instead of listing just courses and credit hours, it would actually display capabilities that the students have demonstrated and acquired in their time at the institution. It’s a different kind of academic record.

We’re having similar conversations doing that in partnership with the University of Wisconsin – Extension System in partnership with UMUC. We’re participating in March with University of Texas Austin on a design project where we, with a couple of other vendors and some other thought leaders, are fundamentally rethinking what the learning environment looks like. What should the student experience be through their first semester to the next? How do we make that a more holistic, engaging, and a graded experience?

We’re also in the process of, similarly, reinventing the learning experience for EDMC [Education anagement Corporation], which is the parent company for the Art Institute where they have a very large online presence as well as a very large traditional face-to-face learning experience. We’re helping them think about creating learning experiences that are more personalized and engaging and that really help students progress from one course to the next.

A lot of efforts in the past in the space focused on making individual courses better. If we don’t help students move from one course to the next, it doesn’t matter how good an individual course is. A student takes one great course and doesn’t enrol in the next, and ultimately doesn’t complete their program. Those are a few examples and maybe some of the challenges and opportunities we’re exploring with them.

Sramana Mitra: How much of your customer base is coming off other learning systems switching to you?

Jon Mott: We take a pretty open and agnostic approach to that. We recognize that, in many instances, the current learning system is pretty deeply entrenched. It has a lot of inertia behind it. I don’t mean that in a negative way. A lot of times that’s just part of the day-to-day workflow for teachers and students. We also recognize that we can’t just add new dollars on top of what they’re already spending because institutions are already cash-strapped.

What we try to do is say, “What value can we add on top of what you’re currently doing that drives real meaningful metrics for you?” For example, if we can increase by 1%, what is that worth to you? When we ask institutions that, a lot of them know that number right off the top of their head. One recently said, “One percentage point increase in retention equals $1.2 million.” We say, “Great! Let’s do a pilot. If we can demonstrate that adding different engines on top of your current infrastructure increases retention by 1% or 2%, that pays for itself.”

There are other instances where institutions are more aggressively looking to leap beyond the current infrastructure and say, “Our current LMS is nice but it’s more tactical and focuses on administrative functions. What we really want to do is change the game.” In those cases, we might work on something more along the lines of completely replacing their environment. I would say that about two-thirds of three-quarters are supplemental to existing environments and maybe, the rest are more holistic replacements.

Sramana Mitra: Switching the line of questioning a bit, what do you see as interesting opportunities for entrepreneurship in the area of online education?

Jon Mott: There has been a slurry of new companies emerging that build adaptive and personalized courses. These are companies like Acrobatic or Smart Sparrow that focus on building better courses for specific topics. I think that one of the interesting things that gets talked a lot about is that there aren’t a lot of great solutions around learning analytics. How do I take the data from all of these different courses and roll them up to interesting reports or dashboards for learners across multiple learning experiences? That’s something that Learning Objects is doing.

We recognize that we can’t do everything perfectly or at the level of detail that people might want at every instance. Some of these integrations of different learning environments and the analytics in rolling up data in multiple environments is an interesting opportunity. I also think that point solutions around how to get significant lift in specific areas is an opportunity. Some of the courses where people might struggle more than others and having interesting tools or point solutions are interesting areas where there are some opportunities.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in Online Education: Jon Mott, Chief Learning Officer, Learning Objects
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