The editorial of August 8 concluded by suggesting that “building more physical university facilities may not be the best way forward”. Indeed, the editorial highlights the increased popularity of online courses.

While acknowledging that technology does play a key role in improving the delivery of educational output, brick and mortar facilities still remain crucial for a genuine intellectually stimulating educational experience.

A crucial aspect of the learning process is the discussion and group collaboration among students as well as between the students and the lecturer.

Although communication technology has made great improvements, this is not a perfect substitute to the face-to-face real time discussion of concepts. Indeed, at tertiary level, a proper learning experience is not one way, that is, from the lecturer to the student, but, rather, the joint result of the lecturer’s expertise and the inquisitiveness of the students.

A lecturer can fine tune the course content in real time in order to discuss the concepts and examples on the basis of students’ interests and their background, something that would not be possible in the case of standard mass production online courses.