MOOCs

What are they

and how might they

impact you?

NEACRAO Annual Meeting

Program Session 3A

Thursday, November 7, 2013 Meredith Braz, Registrar

Dartmouth College

What is a MOOC?

“Mook” existed in English as an obscure

slang term referring to “a foolish,

insignificant, or contemptible person”

which first appeared in 1930.

More recently, “MOOC” stands for

“Massive Open Online Courses”

Definition

Oxford Dictionaries Online Definition:

“A course of study made available over

the Internet without charge to a very

large number of people.”

Definition

A free, online educational resource with assignments, that has assessment mechanisms and an endpoint, without admissions criteria and that involves a large numbers of users.

Massive, in that machine grading, peer assessment and other peer support become not only desirable but necessary.

What is not a MOOC?

“Traditional” on-line courses where

students register at an institution to

receive course credit from that institution

“Distance learning” towards a

“traditional” degree offered by the

institution

What is not a MOOC?

Lines are getting blurred as some MOOC

providers are offering, and charging for

“certificates of completion” for

completing MOOCs

MIT recently announced that it would

offer recognition (certificate) for

completion of a series of MOOCs,

however not towards their “traditional”

degree

Who are the major MOOC

providers?

EdX

Created with a $60m investment by

Harvard University and the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology (MIT) in May 2012

Offer courses in physics, computer science,

engineering, literature, ethics, law,

medicine and economics

Twenty-nine universities currently participate Berkeley; Texas U., Austin; Georgetown; Cornell; Berklee College

of Music; University of Toronto; and University of Kyoto

Who are the major MOOC

providers? - continued

EdX emphasizes “learning” as its goal, especially how the data it collects from experimentation can help improve learning on the participating institutions’ campuses

Courses include not only lectures but encourage interactivity, both online and by helping to organize in-person study groups world-wide.

Enrollees may either seek a certificate of completion, by paying a fee, or take the courses for free

Who are the major MOOC

providers? - continued

Coursera Funded with $16m in venture capital started by

two computer science professors at Stanford University (Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng) in April 2012

Offers courses in the Humanities, Medicine, Biology, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, Computer Science and more

Original partners were Stanford, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Michigan. Now has partnerships with 84 universities and

offers more than 400 courses.

Who are the major MOOC

providers? - continued

In January 2013, Coursera announced that

the American Council on Education had

approved five courses for college credit

Vision is a “future where everyone has

access to a world-class education that has

so far been available to a select few”

Also encourage interactivity, with online

discussion groups, peer-to-peer forums and

peer grading

Who are the major MOOC

providers? - continued

Udacity

Also founded by a Stanford computer

scientist (Sebastian Thrun) in January 2012

Funded by venture capital and Thrun’s own

money

About 30 courses with a strong emphasis on

science, math and computer science

Unlike EdX and Coursera, courses are

entirely self-paced

Who are the major MOOC

providers? - continued

There are many others, some which are “MOOC-like” with multiple higher education partners in both the US and around the world

See the following graphic for MOOC participants and funding sources

Graphic by XARISSA HOLDAWAY; illustration by NIGEL HAWTIN Sources: THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, FINANCIAL TIMES, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, THE NEW YORK TIMES, TECHCRUNCH, CNN, WIRED, AND YAHOO FINANCE

Who to watch?

MOOC2Degree:

Promoting transferable credit, as long as

students can get admitted to the college.

At least nine colleges are planning to

participate, and Jeb Bush, the former

Florida governor, has spoken favorably of

the venture.

Who to watch?

CourseSite

Blackboard is just starting to enter the MOOC

arena with its CourseSite platform. So far, it has

only been tested by a few universities.

Canvas Network

A competitor of Blackboard. David Wiley, an

early MOOC teacher and promoter, is a major

supporter.

12+ colleges have signed up. The company has

received more than $9-million in investments.

Who to watch? Udemy

Has raised more than $16-million in venture capital and includes courses in many topics taught by professors, authors, professionals, and celebrities.

Thinkful

Billionaire Peter Thiel invested 1 million to start this career development-oriented company. It will design an online program for those who wish to switch to a new career or add more skills in their current job

MOOC challenges and

opportunities

Enrollment in all online courses is up 29% since 2010 while the number of students in conventional university courses has declined (according to the Babson Survey Research Group).

Are we in the early stages of both research and opportunity?

If 90% of enrollees do not complete a MOOC, and about 25% of enrollees do much of the work, without necessarily finishing the course, are they truly disruptive?

MOOC challenges and

opportunities

The SPOC

Small private online courses.

This combination of MOOC-style teaching

and conventional courses seems to be the next wave.

“Flipped courses” are becoming more

popular, where the lecture portion is

delivered online and classroom time is in-class. Also known as a “hybrid” model.

MOOC challenges and

opportunities

Coursera recently raised $43m and plans to

double in size. They collected close to $1m from

their "Signature Track" program, where users take a

proctored examination and earn a "verified"

certificate of achievement for their work in

MOOCs.

MOOC Challenges and

Opportunities

They recently invited 10 public universities to use its online-teaching platform for non-MOOC online

courses for a fee. The contracts also lay out a

framework for universities to license course

content from one another, with a percentage going to Coursera.

They are called "guided" or "adopted" courses,

taught for credit to registered students who are

enrolled at the university and pay tuition.

MOOC challenges and

opportunities

MOOCs, by contrast, are classified in

Coursera’s contract as "open access"

courses that are broadcast to "end users,"

who may or may not be students.

This would have FERPA considerations – a

student, or not a student?

MOOC challenges and

opportunities

San Jose State

Contracted with Udacity to offer college classes to students (it’s own and anyone else) for a small fee.

Experiment suspended after 6 months– more than half of the students who took the courses online failed their final exam.

Contracted with MIT to use a MOOC as part of a course taught at San Jose State in more of a hybrid model with better results.

MOOC challenges and

opportunities

Last March, under SB 520, California attempted to mandate that public universities award academic credit to students who succeeded in some massive open online courses offered by outside providers. They received significant resistance from the Universities.

Universities defeated the initiatives and have promised to expand their own online courses.

Why do we hear so much

about MOOCs?

• Now that high-volume, low-margin information technology has been applied to finance, retail,

and the media, education is next?

• Families are looking for a way to make higher

education less expensive and MOOCs may be

one answer?

• Policy makers are seeking a way to lower the cost

of education?

• It may be a way of teaching people more

efficiently, or effectively?

What needs to be considered

when launching a MOOC? Questions an institution has to consider:

$$ - How do we finance it? MOOCs are not revenue neutral or positive, but deeply revenue

negative Audience(s) Cultural challenge (How to integrate outward focus with the culture

of the institution) highlight the college's area(s) of expertise? Impact on traditional students faculty spending time on MOOC vs. institution’s students Quality control issues faculty governance issues related to MOOCs

teaching release, faculty compensation for development Ownership, intellectual property issues - "who owns the course?“ FERPA considerations

Discussion

Are MOOCs "disruptive?"

MOOCs are an "interesting experiment,"

but are they just that - an experiment?

Will MOOCs eventually replace a

traditional college education?