Dear Brian, The cost/benefit ratio of free, good online learning content can be very low as long as it is mass-market oriented. It just requires a lecturer to be a good pointer. However, correcting student mistakes and coaching still requires 1:1 tutoring, which is expensive as long as the university admin, sports fields, campus etc. have to be paid for. So, point your Web Browser to https://woolf.university

An exemplary bookmarks.html is where you start for the mass market. Assume even if they are hand-me-downs that your students do have smart phones with Web access. Corporate Web sites push marketing info, not the stuff that real students really need. Still, subsidization of good pages will be acceptable, especially to students who are brought up on the inserted advertising model. However, bear in mind that the advertisers must be chosen to advertise basic products and services in order for their advertising spend to succeed.

Wikipedia has surpassed Britannica in terms of coverage, accuracy, timeousness, usefulness and availability. Sadly, you cannot put your company ads onto Wikipedia. But your bookmarks.html file can link to sponsors to help monetise your course. The success of Vodacom's “Call me” – which turns Scotch Calls into advertising opportunities – is an example of how advertising is being accepted by today's students. By the time my memo gets to you, you will have 1/3 of your screen filled with adverts.

The problem with subsidising part of the Web is that it always links to other parts that are not subsidised, leading to student frustration. The data costs are very low in comparison with textbooks and photo-copying and travelling costs previously invoked by students.

@Ian, thanks for your awesome reply.

you tackled the online learning/ education perspective. I think there is still the corporate perspective as well. Not sure whether this is an issue in developed countries, but in developing countries, an open question, at least to me, is whether internet cost impacts traffic on a corporate's website, and thus profitability in any way. easier access to corporate/ commercial websites should influence consumer behaviour as well. it may lead to more informed purchasing decisions, and might increase competition. very plainly, it costs (data) to search online for products, and should the consumer pay for this, or should the corporate subsidize it?

you also rightly surface the issue of credibility and accuracy of data/ information provided. i think this will be more an issue with learning/ education, than commerce.

you suggest advertising as a means of subsidizing the cost. i wonder whether outright subsidizing the cost is not an option. i am also assuming that data cost is the greatest cost and thus inhibitor to online content and thus learning. a good question would be the average amount of data an average "learner" or "student" - who in this case is really everybody - uses while learning online, and thus needs in order to learn, and the cost thereof. i think in developing countries this may be prohibitive, and there might be a lot of development potential be here then.

Currently the searching consumer pays data costs. These can become excessive as advertisers push video adverts down the unsuspecting throats of what might have been a potential customers.

Google's home page is still a textbook example of how to deliver the start page quickly. Wise advertisers please copy! I have not seen a perfect Web site with quick and obvious navigation to reduce data costs and consumer time. But here is a good example I saw today. https://www.crcpress.com/ Accuracy and usability counts for everything. Here is the worst example I came across in the last month. http://www.av380.cn/ To download a mandatory app to get your device to work you have to answer questions posed only in Chinese!

In developing countries, access to a service provider can be a major barrier. Data costs are indeed the major running costs, as long as a solar power panel is available and the smart phone has been paid off.

Here advertisers cannot be attracted, because they know (or will quickly find out!) that the potential customer is living below the breadline, and has no cash to purchase the product or service or even transport to get to where it is sold.

In terms of duration of access, the pupil or student or “everyone” will be connected each day for the duration of “study-time”. In terms of data, one could measure or model a reasonable mix of text, and images. If do you include video, you can neglect the cost of text and image data fees.

Video is really powerful. If you want to learn something really quick, go to YouTube.com, and search like the youngsters do today. If the official V380 site fails to deliver the goods, then type V380 into YouTube for some help. The accent may be awful, but, hey, it is useful “free” help.

Brian, this is a tricky issue & Ian has raised some Important perspectives. The discussion so far on data costs is one that is sometimes missed in the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, which is more focused on the actual content or the tools. I find Cost/Benefit investigations often vary according to what criteria you might use. But it's definitely a legitimate tension worth investigating. But I see many other related tensions & different ways of looking at the issues. The Internet has thrived on innovations based on "openness", open architecture, open source, etc & the many variants of OERs. So, just as we see Ian's suggestion of checking out Woolf University there are diverse responses to the openness question - such as https://oeru.org/ But a tension remains with the necessity of working optimally with "closed" environments - banking, intelligence, security, etc.

Internet schooling is a real possibility. It could be sneaked in under the guise of "home schooling"?

The real advantage of internet schooling is the freedom. I don't mean that the course is tailored for or panders to the so-called "learning style" of the student. What internet schooling offers is the freedom (hopefully under some advice so that it is not too scattered) to choose what one is interested in at an early stage. Interest is of course motivating.

the internet is really only hypothetically free if you think about it...

as long as there are costs involved, particularly data costs, the internet and online education, or even development via the internet, are only free in principle.

one should consider whether there are not potential for subsidies with real positive externalities here.