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Cases increasing, campuses closing; the prospect of a far worse pandemic coming this fall. For many higher education institutions, online learning could be the answer. Is the "swine flu" virus A(H1N1) a Black Swan which will accelerate the adoption of online learning?

A couple of years ago, I speculated about whether the issue of academic continuity could be a Black Swan which drastically accelerates the adoption and growth in online education, based on a proposal that all higher education institutions should adopt a "bricks and clicks" strategy to address this issue. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a Black Swan is an exceptional but unpredictable event that has a huge impact. So far, online learning's Black Swan has been access: the drive to increase access to higher education is what brought online education into being out of nothing. The rate of adoption continues to rise steadily, but the question remains: is there another factor which would cause the rate of adoption and growth to increase even more rapidly? The authors of the book Disrupting Class posit four factors for K-12 online education (continued quality improvement; the ability for learning participants to select customized learning pathways; a looming teacher shortage; and lower costs due to economies of scale), but their arguments are unconvincing. Ray Schroeder's Fueling Online Learning blog showed a strong correlation between astronomical gasoline prices last summer (2008) and increased enrollments in online higher education -- substantial, but not extraordinary. On the other hand, there seems to be little evidence thus far that the current recession is accelerating the adoption of online education.

Will H1N1 be different? Certainly it is having an impact which, as of today, is real but not yet Black-Swan-like. According to the Higher Education H1N1 Map , as of today (5/1/09) at least two higher education institutions (Texas Wesleyan University; Harvard Dental School and Clinic) are closed because of the H1N1 virus, TWU for the rest of the semester. The consensus among practitioners who had a recent online discussion about this topic seems to be that the timing is off -- for now: most institutions can get through the current semester without radically changing their plans.

However, the more pertinent question may be, will the fall semester be any different? Ray Schroeder thinks that may be so; today, I heard him recommend that all HEIs adopt a strategy to be able to offer all of their courses on a learning management system to be prepared for the fall semester. His view is that this pandemic could follow the pattern of the 1918 pandemic , which appeared in a milder form in the spring, but returned in a much more virulent form in the fall of that year.

How will higher education institutions respond to this possibility? Will they adopt online learning proactively as Schroeder suggests? Will they adopt it reactively as many institutions did during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 and Valley City State University did this spring in response to the floods there? Will they simply be overwhelmed and fail to react at all? Or will they dodge a bullet this time? It will be extremely interesting to watch, and wise to follow in the meantime -- this may be a classic example of crisis engendering opportunity...