how linkedin views its role in education - the chronicle of higher education

3/22/2016 How LinkedIn Views Its Role in Education - The Chronicle of Higher Education

http://chronicle.com/article/How-LinkedIn-Views-Its-Role-In/235788/?key=hK2DAll6zpYc58kxs_vYY6Ze6LcBIHTYB1LfZtfu9cwyVGZzTkdzUjlHS2N3UThQcFh... 1/7

M

Michael Korcuska, LinkedIn’s vice president of

management for learning: "Our primary focus is

really on lifelong learning. … a four-year degree is

superhelpful in launching your career, but it's not

enough to sustain your career."

TECHNOLOGY

How LinkedIn Views Its Role inEducationBy Jeffrey R. Young MARCH 21, 2016

any higher-education

leaders are watching

LinkedIn closely these

days.

On the one hand, colleges are big

users of the professional social

network, setting up university pages

and encouraging graduates to set up

profiles to get jobs. But some

officials are also wary of how much

the company plans to move into

education, especially after it

purchased the online-course library

Lynda.com last year.

A year has now passed since that

acquisition, and the company’s plans for the service are coming into sharper

focus. To find out what those plans look like, The Chronicle spoke with Michael

Korcuska, LinkedIn’s vice president of management for learning. The interview

has been edited and condensed for clarity.

http://chronicle.com/section/Technology/30

http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/08/19/introducing-linkedin-university-pages/

http://chronicle.com/article/How-LinkedIn-s-Latest-Move/229441



Q. LinkedIn paid $1.5 billion for Lynda.com, and that's a pretty hefty price tag.

Why is this video library worth that much to a social network for professionals?

A. We think there's a lot of opportunity in marriage between LinkedIn and Lynda,

and the main thing is, we have a large professional audience who need to keep

their skills up to date. We believe Lynda has the highest quality professional-

training content in the marketplace. And we think by bringing that learning

offering and being able to distribute it to LinkedIn's professional network, there

will be a lot of benefit.

Q. Is this just the beginning of course offerings from LinkedIn?



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A. We will be investing in expanding the library of courses, with a particular focus

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this year on IT and technology topics. We believe that there's a lot of opportunity

to better distribute those offerings with integrations to LinkedIn. That's an area

where I think LinkedIn can be more efficient and effective than a smaller

company like Lynda could be.

Q. Facebook has the social graph, and LinkedIn has been talking about building

what it calls the "economic graph," but I'm a little unclear what exactly that

means. Could you sketch a vision for this larger effort that LinkedIn is doing?

A. The basic notion of the economic graph is that we want to build a digital

representation of the economy: a profile for every member; an electronic profile

for every company; a list of all the jobs, full time, part time, temporary,

permanent, that are available; all the skills that are needed to get those jobs, as

well as the skills that our members have; all the vocational institutions that can

provide those skills, whether those are formal higher-education institutions or

providers like Lynda.com; and then finally all the knowledge our members have

and are willing to share. We believe by representing that digitally, we can help

people find careers more quickly, help companies find positions more quickly,

and make the economy more efficient over all, and even improve GDP.

Q. So you could affect the entire country’s wealth somehow?

A. Yeah, we believe that that's possible. That's a long-term vision. We're talking 10

years out. We're not near to achieving that. We've made progress, but yes, I think

if you take friction out of the economy in that way and help companies fill their

jobs more quickly, people get into positions where they're more fulfilled and more

effective. So that yes, it will improve economic well-being. One of those pillars is

skills, and that's a large part of why LinkedIn acquired Lynda. It's a great business

opportunity for us, but in terms of fulfilling our vision, that's a pillar where Lynda

fits squarely.



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Q. This is obviously a powerful place to sit, as unique a data set as any of these

social networks end up being. You mentioned the country and the economy,

the big frame. What if, though, the person's best educational path might be

through some other brand of education, either formal college or some other

network? Lynda is your preferred choice, so doesn't that limit what you're

suggesting, in a way?

A. First of all, those educational

institutions are already using Lynda

and incorporating it into their

programs. And the spending on

education is huge worldwide. Even

at scale, we don't believe we're

going to be the only answer to

people's educational needs. At some

point, it could be that there is a

marketplace for learning offerings

on LinkedIn, especially when Lynda

doesn't meet the needs of particular

students. Just a really simple

example: Today we have courses in

English, Spanish, German, and

French, and a few in Japanese. If

you're sitting in Russia and you want to take these courses, and your first

language is Russian, we don't have much to offer you.

Q. So going back to this idea of data, the economic graph, and how you could be

in a unique position as an education provider. Netflix makes its own shows

now, and people have noted that it obviously knows a lot about what its users

http://wearehearken.com/



like; it can tailor its shows to what people seem to like. Does that mean

LinkedIn might do something similar with building courses based on what it

knows the educational needs are of users — the same idea?

A. Very insightful question. The integration between Lynda and LinkedIn goes two

ways. We've already talked about offering Lynda courses to our LinkedIn

members based on what we know about their career trajectories, but we can also

look at skills that seem to be in demand based on data we have on LinkedIn and

use that to inform the catalog of what we want to build for Lynda.

Q. Is that happening already, do you think it might?

A. It's happening already.

Q. Can you give a concrete example?

A. I don't have a specific example to share today. We see in job postings where

new skills are mentioned. There's other ways of getting that information, but we

think this is an interesting input to building out our course catalogs.

Q. Is this a new kind of competition for higher education? Should colleges be a

little worried about this mammoth new education player?

A. I don't think they should be worried. They're already using our offerings to

make themselves more efficient and make their learning more effective for their

students, so I think that would help make higher education more accessible and

more affordable for more people. Everybody shares that goal. Our primary focus

is really on lifelong learning. You and your readers know that the lifetime of skills

gets shorter and shorter as time passes, and that a four-year degree is

superhelpful in launching your career, but it's not enough to sustain your career.

We see Lynda as primarily focused today on helping professionals stay at the top

of their field, not as a substitute for a four-year degree.



Jeffrey R. Young writes about technology in education and leads the Re:Learning

project. Follow him on Twitter @jryoung; check out his home page, jeffyoung.net;

or try him by email at [email protected].

Join the conversation about this article on the Re:Learning Facebook page.

This article is part of:

Mapping the New Education Landscape

Copyright © 2016 The Chronicle of Higher Education

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how linkedin views its role in education - the chronicle of higher education

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