Certainly an interesting step, and one that may work out well. First the "flipped" classroom and now "flipped" admissions. This type of admissions strategy might actually give some more hope than is indicated in the recent blog post (and subsequent LA Times Op Ed): http://mathwithbaddrawings.com/.../why-ive-stopped-doing.../

Perhaps it's a much better idea to think of it in the light of "The Cluetrain Manifesto" by Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, and Jake McKee [http://www.amazon.com/Cluetrain-Manifesto-10th-Anniversary/dp/0465024092/]? In particular Doc Searls has a more interesting modern-day take on CRM and what it should function as. For those who aren't aware, this book is also in part responsible for much of the philosophy behind large portions of the social media revolution which has taken place over the past decade.

I agree with Arnaldo that Quality Control might be an effective means of increasing the overall quality of the system, however one will need to be careful not to place too much emphasis on just the factual content in defining a Learning Object – arguably the biggest part of an education isn't just learning the facts, yet being able to approach things from a larger holistic whole. The sum of the facts learned are not necessarily the whole of the education - in fact, it's learning how to learn, cope, adapt, and extend in the future that is one of the greatest factors in the educational process. Utilizing the simplest concept of LOs, may pander to the lowest common denominator, and on this basis the local community college would be on par with the highest research institutions. One would have to take into account the learning atmosphere, the surrounding conversations and interactions, the level of the competition, and the learner's peers as additional benchmarking in such a quality control process. One of the largest disparities between the highest institutes and the lowest is, in part, the desire to learn and take the most advantage of the opportunities granted at an institution. Towards this end, I'm curious to hear everyone's thoughts on the concept of what the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE)(http://nsse.iub.edu/) is doing. Today's article in the Washington Post on its rankings seems like a very apropos one given the lack of real benchmarks in many of the other rankings and surveys. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/14/AR2010021402968.html The other major factor to take into consideration is the cost of the process and potentially a measure of cost per unit quantity. The problem here is the "per unit quantity" portion of the equation which needs some significant work to accurately define. Event the general economics of the cost part of the structure are in wide question as last week’s Washington Post points out at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/09/AR2010020903832_pf.html. This article essentially reports that though the price tag of an education is rising, the actual paid cost by individual students has decreased over the past several years. Does this portend the coming of a Wal-mart (or possibly even a Costco) Educational system? Is anyone aware of educators taking the principles of JM Juran, W.E. Deming, et al. and applying them to education instead of manufacturing? Given that, since the start of the industrial revolution, the delivery of an education is one of the few processes that hasn't improved exponentially as other areas of "manufacture" have, will it really be improving the means of measuring delivery and imposing more quality control that will make it easier and less expensive to deliver an education?