Blended learning and OfS regulation

Summary

This report sets out our regulatory views following a review of blended learning, which we commissioned in June 2022.¹ By 'blended learning' we mean ‘teaching and learning that combines in-person delivery and delivery in a digital environment'.²

We commissioned a panel of academic experts to look at approaches to blended learning in six higher education providers and set out its findings in a report to the OfS. This document follows that report, setting out how the themes identified by the review panel relate to our regulatory requirements.

How to use this report

By drawing out examples of approaches to blended learning from the review and relating them to our regulatory requirements, we indicate the ways in which a university or college should approach blended learning to comply with our requirements. This report considers different approaches to blended learning in the context of the OfS’s requirements relating to providing a high quality academic experience with appropriate resources, support and student engagement (conditions of registration B1 and B2).

Alongside this report we have also published a short online guide for students, parents or interested members of the public. These webpages explain what students can do if they have any concerns about their academic experience.³ Students, parents or members of the public can also use this report to explore in more detail what our requirements might mean for the way a university or college offers blended learning.

We expect universities and colleges to read this report carefully and consider whether they need to change their approach to blended learning so that it complies with our regulatory requirements.

Any university or college should also consider its particular context and determine its own approach. Our report is intended to encourage and enable thoughtful assessment of the ways different approaches to blended learning are likely to interact with relevant regulatory requirements, not to work as a prescriptive checklist of compliant and non-compliant approaches.

This report may be particularly relevant for providers that have recently changed the way they deliver teaching and learning or that plan to do so in future.

Universities and colleges may also wish to consider the separate report authored by the blended learning review panel which has been published alongside this document. The panel’s report contains a number of recommendations for the design and implementation of blended learning. The review panel’s recommendations reflect the views of the independent expert panel. The panel’s recommendations should not be interpreted as OfS regulatory guidance.

Following the publication of this report, we will continue to monitor registered universities and colleges and, where appropriate, intervene to protect the interests of students.⁴

How providers might comply

We have set out in more detail the themes which emerged from the review. We have summarised here the approaches which would be likely to cause compliance concerns in relation to the two conditions of registration that are particularly relevant: conditions B1 and B2.

Consumer protection

Although this report focuses on conditions B1 and B2, other regulatory requirements are relevant to how universities and college approach blended learning. Registered providers must also, for example, give due regard to relevant guidance about how to comply with consumer protection law (‘condition C1’).

Universities and colleges should ensure their marketing information is clear and provides sufficiently detailed information about how courses will be delivered.

We would be likely to have compliance concerns in relation to condition C1 if a provider cannot demonstrate that it has had due regard for relevant guidance about how to comply with consumer protection law in developing and publishing information for prospective students about a course, or if there was otherwise evidence that suggested it had not complied with consumer protection law.

Footnotes