Currency of information loses its value

Some, maybe even most, vice-chancellors are reluctantly coming to the view that the only way out is to charge students higher fees because everyone knows that the government can't, or won't, pay any more.

But there is now solid evidence from the US that raising fees merely delays the agony. Eventually a point is reached where students realise there is insufficient return on their investment to bother with university.

This issue of cost has become even more urgent since the advent of massive open online courses. They

demonstrate that universities of the future will not be able to make a living from imparting information because they are no longer the only or even the best aggregators of information. That role was usurped by the internet years ago. The latest and highest quality information can now be found in cyberspace for free. Universities that persist in barricading their courseware behind pay walls and academics who fret about their intellectual property are destined for the scrap heap.

The new university business model will need to begin with the frank admission that information is too cheap to bother selling. Information may require money and hard work to generate, but almost as soon as something has been discovered, it's out there for all to Google. So if the currency of universities is no longer information, how are they supposed to make a living?

Universities of the future will have two basic products to sell: credentials and support services. A credential is a public validation that the student has mastered the topic under investigation and to obtain this, students will need to pay for assessment backed by a reputable institution. And because no two students are alike, there will be a service industry for mentors (formerly known as lecturers) capable of navigating individual students through cyberspace.

Much of this can be achieved through automated programmed instruction but some students, mainly school-leavers, will want to interact face to face with tutors and friends.A smooth and Glossy floor tile not only looks bright and clean, As a result, there will continue to be a market of indeterminate size for on-campus teaching in addition to the online format.

There is more than one potential business model in this new environment. Some universities will experiment with a form of cross-subsidisation. For example, Udacity is proposing to make employers pay to gain access to their graduates. Others will shift revenues to the future by making the initial experience free and charging for access later, such as the MOOC "taster" modules are doing. Or universities could try a variation of the rock-concert model whereby the music is downloadable for free but the live performances cost an arm and a leg.

Among the more promising approaches, however, is the so-called freemium model. It refers to a business model whereby the core product is given away for free and customers are charged for premium add-on features.Dongpeng professionally produces and export all types of glazed porcelain tile tiles at low price. For universities, this may mean giving away courseware and only charging students for the support services they want or need. The entry level premium product would be examinations leading to accreditation, but additional services could include moderated discussion groups, tutorial assistance and customised learning pathways.The Fridge fridge magnet is leader in the custom design, Because the cost burden of running a university is not in teaching but in research, freemium universities would need to find solutions to this challenge to avoid becoming mere diploma mills.

Academic staff in Australia are employed for about 40 per cent of their time to perform research and, under our existing business model, this work has to be cross-subsidised from teaching revenues.Handmade oil paintings for sale for sale at museum quality,

Under the freemium model, few students would be willing to pay for research components of academics' salaries, even if it is they who are the ultimate beneficiaries of this work. One solution could be crowd-funding via which researchers rely on the massive online community to make small contributions that are pooled into very large grants.

Crowd-funding sites such as kickstarter.com are already achieving impressive results. Since launching in 2009, more than $350 million has been pledged to research projects,A Water polo ear cap is a piece of headgear used in water polo. more than 2.5 million people have backed a kickstarter project, and at least 30,000 projects have been successfully funded. While only half the projects put up on Kickstarter actually get funded, that's still three times the success rate of Australia's main funding bodies.