Alison (company) ALISON is a free online education platform that mostly focuses on workplace-based skills. It was founded in Galway, Ireland by Irish social entrepreneur Mike Feerick on 21 April 2007. It has 11 million registered learners, 1.5 million graduates, and 1,000 courses available for free access in December 2017. Alison's learners have access to online courses, specializations, and degrees in a variety of subjects published by many big name universities and organizations. Background History and development In 2005, while server and broadband costs were decreasing and webpages were becoming more monetizable, Mike Feerick realized that free education could be provided online as a scalable business. In 2006, Feerick developed the platform and designed it. On 21 April 2007, Alison was launched with its first free customer and six courses. Among Alison's stated aims are to drive all costs of accessing digitally-based education and skills training to zero and to bring disruptive innovation to global education and skills training through a scalable business model which enables registered users to be educated for free. In April 2017, the company decided to make a technical overhaul of the platform. The company also launched its mobile application, which drives 50% of the website's traffic worldwide. On 5 July 2016, President Pranab Mukherjee of India announced the partnership between Alison and the National Skill Development Corporation, which included a partnership with Rabindranath Tagore University. Product and services Business model Alison income is generated from advertising and sales of certificates. According to The Economist, the company seeks to drive education through advertising in the manner of television and radio. Through the online pay per click advertising revenue model, Alison has founded a business model it can provide learning materials at no cost to the learner. Courses Alison currently offers more than a thousand courses at certificate, diploma, and learning path levels across nine core subject categories. The certificate level courses require two to three hours of study while the more rigorous diploma level courses require ten to fifteen hours of study. There is no time limit for completing a course. One of Alison's courses is ABC IT, a fifteen to twenty-hour training suite which is cited by The New York Times as "covering similar ground" to the International Computer Driving License without the cost of certification. Accreditation According to the Alison website, Alison is not currently accredited by any external body, and does not intend to be accredited at any time in the future, while delivering courses with up-to-date international pedagogical standards. Reception Alison was among the four winners of the 2010 UNESCO King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa Prize, a Prize for innovation in ICT for Education. In October 2013, Alison won an award at the World Innovation Summit for Education held in Qatar. Since 2013 Alison courses have become generally recognized by many employers, particularly in occupations and disciplines where no external certification by professional bodies post-graduation exist. It is estimated that currently over 1.5 million people around the world have an Alison course on their CV. David Bornstein of The New York Times noted that 'practical skills training is usually expensive.' Initially some observers also predicted the ineffectiveness of the MOOC model in delivering real educational impact, highlighting the lack of personal interaction with educators and the high drop-out rate of users with no incentive to commit without any material investment of their own. See also Language education List of Language Self-Study Programs References External links Category:Irish educational websites Category:Education companies established in 2007 Category:Organizations established in 2007 Category:Education companies of Ireland Category:Distance education institutions based in the Republic of Ireland