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Flat course fees for online teaching: a solution to some, that is a hindrance to most

Work in progress

This opinion piece is a work in progress and will change.

For some, a solution will be implemented: NBIS Training intends to start charging a course fee of 1000 SEK for online teaching (until now, these have been free of charge). This should help the teachers of those courses that reject some of the (too) many applicants: it should help assure that the people that are accepted into the course do indeed show up. Also, this is more just to applicants that were rejected, that their spot in that full course is indeed taken up by someone. Although these were the only arguments presented, some teachers think it will also help increase engagement to courses: if our participants have had to pay, they will take a course more seriously. Also, from a management perspective, introducing a course fee is an effective mechanism to weed out smaller (hence, less cost-effective) courses.

For most, this will be a hindrance: teachers of courses that have no problem accepting all participants, suddenly have a problem: they expect a lower number of (applications and) participants. Courses taught to a small pool of potential participants (e.g. highly specialized topics) expect to be cancelled more often, due to lack of participants. A big group of people that are disadvantaged are the participants that do show up after registration and do engage in a course: there were not part of the problem, but are now hindered by the solution. Also, it will introduce injustice to the accepted participants that need to cancel for reasons we think are valid, such as unexpected events in their private lives such as deaths and hospitalizations. Finally, those with ideals are hurt: those that think education should be free and those that feel that our participants are always welcome.

Here is an overview of the winners and losers of introducing a flat course fee:

Group Winners Losers
Management Those that want big cost-effective course Those that think education should be free, those that think highly-specialized small courses should exist
Teachers Those that need to reject applicants to their courses, those that have problems arranging assistants Those that teach courses that are below capacity, those that have the pedagogic tools and/or assistants to teach bigger groups
Teachers Those that want more engagement of participants Those that see the amount of engagement as a given (and hence, their own problem)
Learners Those that are rejected by a course, where in hindsight, there was an open spot Those that show up in a course, those that rightfully need to cancel a course

Table 1: the winners and losers of implementing a flat course for online courses

I conclude that introducing a flat course fee for online courses is a solution to some and a hindrance to most. Most problematic, I feel, is that the learners that gain from this policy, are those not even present in our courses!

Support for a flat course fee for online courses appears mixed: when asking NBIS staff about this, around half support the idea, where all staff of other (online) course providers are (sometimes fiercely) against it. The sample size is too small, however, to extrapolate these conclusions. The anonymized and aggregated responses can be found in appendix 2 (for NBIS staff) and appendix 3 (for non-NBIS staff).

There are many alternative solutions given: both NBIS and non-NBIS staff suggested alternative solutions, again, see appendix 2 (for NBIS staff) and appendix 3 (for non-NBIS staff).

The most elegant and widely applied solution is to estimate, i.e. to estimate how many registered learners actually show up and plan accordingly. From such an estimate, one can over-accept participants, knowing that some will not show up. For example, within NAISS (another online course provider, involved in supercomputing), we know that each 3 registrations equal 1 person attending the course (with a detailed overview shown in appendix 1). This solution is elegant, as there is no money, nor administrative machinery involved: there is only the uncertainty one expects from working with humans with a private life. It seems, however, they do have no choice: as governmental non-profit organisations (both NAISS and some others I asked) are not allowed to introduce a course fee.

This solution can be used to weed out smaller courses too: If the real problem solved is a too large amount of too small courses, i.e. management sees these small courses as cost-ineffective, then here, too, there are more elegant solutions, such as making decisions based on the estimated amount of how many registered learners actually show up.

I already concluded that introducing a flat course fee for online courses is a solution to some and a hindrance to most. I know embracing the uncertainty of working with humans is a more elegant and humane solution. Hence, I suggest to keep online courses free of charge.

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Appendices