Where is e-learning today? Can Open PhD work?

This is me in somebody else blog: open-academic-education-people and she said: "So I procrastinated by surfing through cloudscapes that were focusing on mobile learning. As I went through them I found Faridah Abdul Rashid, who teaches chemical pathology at the Universiti Sains in Malaysia and she mentioned she was into problem-based learning, using Moodle ... but what captured my eyes was her mentioning 'open PhD'. It certainly sounds very contemporary and attractive as a term."

My comments:

What are the terms she used? Try and define them ...

Mobile learning - that form of learning that follows you around on your mobile devices such as smartphone.

Chemical Pathology - a field after medical biochemistry that deals with patients body fluid chemistries (blood, urine, CSF) and stool chemistries in pathological conditions.

Universiti Sains Malaysia - that's the long form of USM

Problem-Based Learning - that's the long form of PBL, a form of teaching methodology used in Year 2 & Year 3 Medicine in our medical school.

MOODLE - An acronym for Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. It simply means most of what students need for learning is hosted online and students can pick and choose what they wish to learn. There is no time limit and everything is self-paced, follow your mood and do as you please. It also means students are now responsible for their own learning. There are advantages and disadvantages but it is better to have an e-learning portal (MedLearn) rather than not have one. Else, everything needs to go on YouTube, EduTube or Scribd and choosing what to learn in difficult as there will be too much trash too.

Open PhD - this simply means you propose a PhD topic, do the PhD and submit online where you wish to submit and get your PhD. No need to attend this class and that class. It means you are mature enough to be responsible for your own PhD program. If something is not going right in your PhD program (eg your PhD Supervisor is creating unnecessary problems for you, you run out of money but wish to stay on in a PhD program), then you have a place online to voice out for assistance. Then the entire academic people in your area are alerted and learn of your problem and can come and save you. This saves you headache and heartache, which is commonplace in any PhD program. I hope you will like this idea and agree with me. We have a more understanding Internet committee of academics than a PhD supervisor who is assigned to a PhD candidate. The whole world is willing to help, so why waste time pleasing one professor or supervisor? This is a new Age and we need not stick to old ways of learning.