Free online courses aren't sapping enrollment numbers—in fact, they're actually helping to spread the word. Those are the preliminary findings out of Brigham Young University, which experimented recently by granting free access to a selection of its distance learning courses. Though further study is needed in order to see whether there's a significant impact, educators are beginning to see that offering free materials isn't the end of the world after all.
The university's Independent Study offerings have been attractive to students who are unable to make class regularly, either due to geographic distance or because of scheduling conflicts. Its Open CourseWare section offers the general public six classes—three university courses and three high school courses—that anyone on the Web can step through. (May I personally recommend the Financial Planning course? A lot of people could use it these days.) Of course, you won't get any credit for taking the course for free, and that's why BYU hopes you'll pony up the cash and enroll.
BYU's director of independent study Justin K. Johansen examined the usage data of the Open CourseWare offerings and found that, over a period of four months, the six courses brought in 445 paid enrollments and 13,795 visitors. This was mostly business as usual, it seems, as he told the Chronicle of Higher Education that the courses had "neither a large positive marketing effect that boosted enrollments nor a large negative free-rider impact decreasing enrollments." Still, Johansen acknowledged that the Open CourseWare selection "ended up serving as an advertising tool," helping BYU to spread awareness of its distance learning opportunities.
This is essentially the same lesson as the one learned by the plethora of universities offering courses through iTunes U. These lectures are offered in free podcast format for anyone who uses iTunes, and users can often gain access to full classes this way. When the program was first rolled out, however, some expressed fear that such a strategy would attract freeloaders and siphon money out of the participating universities, but that hasn't been the case. Instead, iTunes U has become wildly popular among educators and students alike, and this is likely the direction BYU is moving in with its Open CourseWare offerings.
Johansen warned that his examination of the data was merely a pilot and that it wasn't possible to gain statistically significant data for the limited time of the study. Because of this, it's possible that the long-term trends might show something different, but BYU's professors are already seeing the potential in attracting new students. This is "the first piece of empirical work I am aware of that demonstrates clearly that a distance-learning program can simultaneously (1) provide a significant public good by publishing open courseware and (2) be revenue positive while doing it," BYU associate professor David Wiley told the Chronicle.
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