{"id":5334,"date":"2024-07-29T13:23:30","date_gmt":"2024-07-29T11:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/?p=5334"},"modified":"2024-08-20T11:08:16","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T09:08:16","slug":"get-smarter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/get-smarter\/","title":{"rendered":"Get Smarter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>(Please note, this interview took place on the 06 March 2014. Details may have changed since the interview)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the past six years, the online educational company <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/\">Get Smarter<\/a> has partnered with the <a href=\"https:\/\/commerce.uct.ac.za\/applying-commerce\/getsmarter-online-short-courses\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/commerce.uct.ac.za\/applying-commerce\/getsmarter-online-short-courses\">UCT Faculty of Commerce<\/a> to offer a range of online short courses. UCT\u2019s website lists the following short courses offered in 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Marketing <\/strong>(Internet Marketing, Marketing, Copywriting for Online Marketing, Public Relations, Sales Management, Social Media and Foundations of Advertising)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Finance <\/strong>(Bookkeeping, Financial Management, Payroll &amp; Tax Admin, Accounting Technician)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Management <\/strong>(Foundations of Corporate Coaching, Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, IT Management, Advanced Project Management, Human Resource Management, Project Management Foundations, Training and Development Management)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Business <\/strong>(Applied Economics for Smart Decision Making, Digital Photography, Events Management, Feature Writing, Guest House Management, Internet Super\u2013User, Professional Communication and Office Management, Office Computing, Photoshop, Tourism Management, Graphic Design, Residential Letting, Screenwriting, Web Design, Commercial Property Broker, Copy\u2013editing and Web Development)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The average price for a course is in around R9 500. Get Smarter courses are offered exclusively online \u2013 in 10-week to 12-week blocks. There is no final exam and short courses are not accredited by the Higher Education Quality Committee (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.che.ac.za\/about-us\/governance-and-management\/higher-education-quality-committee-heqc\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.che.ac.za\/about-us\/governance-and-management\/higher-education-quality-committee-heqc\">HEQC<\/a>), but students that complete the courses (Get Smarter claim a 95% pass rate), receive a UCT short course <a href=\"https:\/\/commerce.uct.ac.za\/applying-commerce\/getsmarter-online-short-courses\">certificate of completion<\/a>  or a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/universities\/university-of-cape-town\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.getsmarter.com\/universities\/university-of-cape-town\">certificate of skills validation<\/a>  There are no admission requirements to these courses, except for access to a computer and internet connection, as well as the ability to read, write and complete any assignments in English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I contacted Sam Paddock, co-CEO of Getting Smarter s, via Twitter and he and I had a 45 minute conversation about Get Smarter and their approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Collaboration<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sam stressed that this was a collaborative partnership &#8211; primarily between the UCT Commerce Faculty and his company. UCT does not pay Get Smarter for any bespoke work but share in the profits of their work. As far as I am able to ascertain, the partnership works in the following manner. UCT acts as the academic custodian responsible for academic content, recommending appropriate academics for the and quality assurance. Get Smarter takes responsibility for learning design, multimedia development, administration, support and managing the learning management system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Marketing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While UCT do list the above Get Smarter courses on their Continuing Education and Professional Development at UCT, it is apparent that Get Smarter play a very active role in marketing the courses. Sam indicated that Get Smarter itself run a full in-house advertising agency and, as a member of the Get Smarter mailing list, I have been impressed by their comprehensive and accessible promotional campaigns across a range of different media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Learner management &amp; Support<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Get Smarter manage the admissions process. Applications for entry to courses are online. As there are no entry requirements for a course, authentication documentation is not necessary, and entry is granted once payment has been made. Get Smarter use Moodle as an LMS. Sam made an interesting observation during the interview when he remarked that he didn\u2019t consider their Learning Management System to be a key differentiator. He indicated that what set them apart from other local e-learning short course providers is the \u201cHigh Touch\u201d approach they take to online relationships. It is apparent that engagement between course participants, course convenors and course administrators is high. If Get Smarter have a key differentiator from their South African competitors , then I think it is their approach to Social Presence<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Course structure<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Get Smarter\u2019s short course are not associated with UCT\u2019s semesters and are scheduled independently. Courses are offered over 10 to 12 weeks, each week is considered a module and 7 hours work per week is expected from students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Course structure is a standard formula with a combination of<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 Course Notes<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 Course Videos<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 A quiz<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 Discussion forum participation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 An Assignment<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2022 Further reading materials<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Costing<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sam, understandably, was reluctant to share course production costs. He and I discussed global course production costs and he indicated that Get Smarter\u2019s production costs were an eighth of the standard average. The development costs of developing an online short course are certainly higher than the costs involved in developing a traditional classroom based course. UCT does not however, have to make any upfront investment as Get Smarter and UCT Faculty of commerce are in a partnership agreement. These costs for Get Smarter are offset by possibilities of large numbers of participants and lower human resource costs as many of the people involved are part time employees of Get Smarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>What is the cost of a course for a student?<\/strong><br>I\u2019ve gone through all the courses offered in conjunction with UCT and it seems as if the average price is R9 500. See attached spreadsheet<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>How much does the average course cost Get Smarter to produce?<\/strong><br>Sam was reluctant to share with me the cost of producing a course. He and I discussed average course production cost \u2013 somewhere between $2 000 000 (Coursera\u2019s stated price) and $15 000 (MIT\u2019s stated price). He indicated that Get Smarter\u2019s production costs were an eighth of the price of a Coursera course<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>What is the minimum amount of students that you will accept on a course?<\/strong><br>Sam indicated that courses were popular. He said that they accept no less than 30. He indicated that course numbers could go up to 200. They have 5000 students going through their courses every year.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>What is your ratio of student to facilitator?<br><\/strong>A course has a course convenor (the UCT presence). Subject matter experts do the teaching and engagement and a course co-ordinator who acts as a facilitator and assists with social presence \/ support \/ encouragement. Technical support is also available.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>How long, and how many people involved in getting the average short course together ready for students?<br><\/strong>I did not get a reply<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Where do the different responsibilities lie. Who is responsible for the curriculum content, the \u201cinstructional\u201d or learning design and \u201cdigitization\u201d of content?<br><\/strong>Get Smarter takes responsibility for most of the above<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>How do you assess student\u2019s mastery of what they have been taught? Are your assessments continuous and with no final exam?<br><\/strong>There are assignments associated with each module within a course. Assessment is based on the assignment<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Who is responsible for student admissions and certification?<br><\/strong>Get Smarter take responsibility for admissions. Certification is provided by UCT\u2019s Short course administration. Certificates have not got any accreditation with HEQC<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Apart from expertise, what do you expect from your subject matter experts?<br><\/strong>Subject Matter experts are very busy people and Get Smarter make sure that their company takes care of the learning design, multimedia production and student coaching<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>What quality assurance processes are in place to ensure the content is correct and student performance is satisfactory?<br><\/strong>This is the responsibility of the course convenor<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Are your certificates SAQA aligned?<\/strong><br>No<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>What training do you offer your subject matter experts, course facilitators and support?<\/strong><br>In house training for our 120 full time and 60 part time staff<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Note<\/strong>: This interview with Sam took place on the 06 March 2014, after a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/weblearning\/status\/440484061862457344\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/x.com\/weblearning\/status\/440484061862457344\">Tweet<\/a> to Sam Paddock. It is being republished, for those who continue to be interested in the Get Smarter Model.   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Please note, this interview took place on the 06 March 2014. Details may have changed since the interview) For the past six years, the online educational company Get Smarter has partnered with the UCT Faculty of Commerce to offer a range of online short courses. UCT\u2019s website lists the following short courses offered in 2014. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/get-smarter\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Get Smarter&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-file","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5334"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5384,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5334\/revisions\/5384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weblearning.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}