Alison is an e-learning provider and academy founded in Galway, Ireland in 2007 by serial entrepreneur, Mike Feerick. Its stated objective is to enable people to gain basic education and workplace skills. Contrary to other MOOC providers with close links to American third level institutions such as MIT and Stanford University, the majority of Alison's learners are located in the developing world with the fastest growing number of users in India. Alison registered its 5 millionth learner in February 2015, making the online education provider one of the biggest MOOCs outside of the US.
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Business model
Alison invites publishers to put some of their courses on the platform, some who wish to do so for no monetary return, others in turn agree to provide their content for free on Alison's website due to the shared revenue gleaned 'mostly from advertising and sales of certificates.' According to The Economist, the company seeks to drive education through advertising in the manner of television and radio. Through the online pay per click advertising revenue model, Alison has founded a business model whereby 'learners in the developed countries are essentially paying for those in developing countries' while providing the learning materials free.
Courses
Alison currently offers over 750 courses across certificate and diploma level in ten languages. The certificate level courses necessitate 1-2 hours study with the more rigorous diploma level offerings requiring 9-11 hours study on the part of the learner. Alison note on their website that 'there is no time limit on completing a course, so learners can study entirely at their own pace' and that some of the courses such as the Microsoft Digital Literacy Program may take up to 20 hours to complete. One of Alison's most popular courses ABC IT, a 15- to 20-hour training suite is cited by the New York Times as 'covering similar ground' to the International Computer Driving License without the cost of certification.
Reception
David Bornstein noted that 'practical skills training is usually expensive.' Some have argued for the ineffectiveness of the MOOC model of this kind in delivering real educational impact, highlighting the lack of personal interaction with educators and the high drop-out rate of users with no incentive to commit without any material investment of their own.
Other sources have noted the 'sustainable' manner of Alison's operating procedure, The Economist suggesting that Alison generates 'plenty of revenue' on its website while still providing its learning materials of 'mostly vocational education' for free.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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