In the context of course cuts across multiple faculties, there is often conflict between how much choice a student should have within their degree and the cost of providing those options. OLEs (Open Learning Environment units) are one attempt by the University of Sydney to streamline students into simpler and shorter units which come at the expense of other electives.
OLEs were first proposed at the University of Sydney when their 2016-2020 strategic plan was released in March 2016. In the proposed curriculum changes, it was mentioned that the introduction of OLEs were designed to teach students “generic skills”, such as cultural competence, digital literacy, and entrepreneurship among others. Ex-Vice Chancellor Michael Spence at the time claimed they would bolster the “relevance” of students’ degrees and the “employability” of Sydney University graduates.
Originally, students enrolled in Arts, Commerce, Economics and Science degrees were required to complete 12 credit points of OLEs, which do not count towards majors. In March 2023, the university academic board voted to reduce the OLE requirement from twelve to six units. This decision was taken following feedback from students who desired greater flexibility in their degrees, which included having more space for elective subjects and other experiences like exchange programs.
When OLEs were introduced in 2018, students reported significantly lower levels of satisfaction with these subjects compared to others. Their ‘popularity’ has increased since then. Notably, 2023 student satisfaction surveys found that OLE units received an overall mean satisfaction score of 4.19 out of 5, compared to 4.21 for all university subjects.
OLE’s have a reputation amongst students for being “WAM boosting” subjects. Students have found that OLEs with an assessment regime highly concentrated towards online quizzes and discussion posts, rather than assignments, have been easier to score higher marks on.
Despite the increase in popularity, OLEs are still likely a cost saving measure for the university. The lack of in person classes, alongside decreased staffing and marking costs make the running of an OLE significantly cheaper than a traditional course. Therefore, OLEs are very expensive on a per-credit unit basis, especially considering they are invariably delivered online, and often do not run for the entire length of the semester, even when not offered in an intensive format.
For example, the April intensive course OLET1105: Cultures of Food —- Europe, which appears to be more of a crash course on areas of cultural interest rather than boosting professional skills, costs $680 for a two-credit point subject —- or $340 per credit point — which is the same cost per credit point as a law subject. Yet these other units require many hours by highly qualified academic staff in marking, teaching, and preparing classes over the course of a semester.
In response to questions about the cost of OLE’s a University spokesperson told Honi that “OLE units are no cheaper to design, create or run. When we introduced OLEs, the complexities of the new model required additional resources.” If this is the case, it is unclear where that cost is going.
Even if the units were not a cost saving measure for the university, the extent to which they teach skills is highly questionable. While some are practical, such as courses in programming and data science, most of the units are either vague or take on subjects which could be normal electives. Courses called “Creative Thinking and Innovation,” “Complex Problem Solving,” “Design your Future,” are so general they border on meaningless. Others are just crash courses into subjects ranging from the drug wars to astronomy to the science behind pay medication.
Students do have a large range of faculties to choose from, however the desire of the university to offer such a large range of OLEs makes the difference between an OLE and an elective increasingly unclear.
Even when an OLE is designed around a practical skill, those skills are often not something a student needs to pay for. As reported in Honi last year, OLET1309: Interactive Web pages with Java Script, which aimed to teach students how to write simple scripts using JavaScript, had a slide titled, “JavaScript DOM —- Event Listener” which was taken from coding website W3Schools. W3Schools is a free-online learning website that provides guides in various coding languages, including JavaScript. Essentially students were paying hundreds of dollars for a unit of study, when the content was all freely available to them on the internet.
Another barrier to OLE’s being effective is the lack of a varied and meaningful assessment structure which challenges students. Online discussion posts and quizzes make up a substantial proportion of the assessment regime for many of these units. Compared to longer form essays and exams, it is difficult to see how students can engage with these subjects at a deeper level. Further, the dependence on pre recorded content means there is less interaction with other students in the form of tutorials or with staff members who can keep students accountable.
The university spokesperson told Honi that funding and support was being given to OLE coordinators to refresh their assessments “including workshops on writing assessments that promote effective use of generative AI tools.” If the universities plan is to design assessments based on generative AI tools being used by students, that only highlights that OLEs represent a shift towards a heavily watered down education.
Last year the university took a good approach in response to student feedback by lowering the requirement of OLEs, but many students believe that it didn’t go far enough. It would be optimal if the requirement to complete a certain amount of OLE credit points were abolished.
OLE units which students select on their own accord could still be run, and many may prefer the option of taking three smaller courses as opposed to one larger six-credit point elective if they could justify the cost. However, the current policy of restricting choice while not fulfilling the promise to teach skills is untenable.
Ultimately, OLEs are not strongly favoured amongst students; they offer a substantially lower standard of education, have failed to deliver on their intended objectives, and are very expensive subjects that assist the university in boosting its cost-efficiency and effectiveness. This points to a need to abolish the requirement in many students’ degrees to undertake them, and instead offer students the opportunity to participate in more elective units.