[Itech] Fwd: Tomorrow's Professor eNewsletter: 1376. Massive Open Online Courses - (A Further Look)
Teresa Franklin
franklit at ohio.edu
Tue Jan 13 14:45:41 EST 2015
Hello Graduates,
Some of you may be interested in this article on MOOCs.
Best,
Dr. Franklin
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Reis <reis at stanford.edu>
Date: Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 6:13 PM
Subject: Tomorrow's Professor eNewsletter: 1376. Massive Open Online
Courses - (A Further Look)
To: tomorrows-professor at lists.stanford.edu
Please click here if e-mail below is not displayed correctly.
<http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/enewsletter.php?msgno=1376>
[image:
Tomorrow's Professor eNewsletter, Sponsored by Stanford Center for Teaching
and Learning]
*The biggest problem for MOOCs is finding a way to monetize them. Even
though MOOCs can enable one professor to reach thousands of students, the
technology and platforms are not free, nor is the professor's time. Most
MOOCs are free right now, and many colleges and experts are trying to find
ways to recover costs or make a profit while using them.*
1376. Massive Open Online Courses - (A Further Look)
*Folks:*
[image: Rick Reis]The posting below is another look at the role of MOOCS in
higher education that also includes a nice review of the history of online
education in general. It is from Chapter 1 - Higher Education at Risk ,
in the book, *Higher Education at Risk: Strategies to Improve Outcomes,
Reduce Tuition, and Stay Competitive in a Disruptive Environment*, by
Sandra Featherman. Published by Stylus Publishing, LLC, 22883 Quicksilver
Drive, Sterling, Virginia 20166-2102. [www.stylus.com]. Copyright © 2014 by
Stylus Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis at stanford.edu
Anyone can subscribe SUBSCRIBE
<https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor> Visit
our website TomProf On-line
<http://cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php> Visit
us on Facebook and Twitter [image: Tomorrow's Professor Facebook Page]
<http://www.facebook.com/TomorrowsProfessor> [image: Tomorrow's Professor
Twitter] <http://twitter.com/tomorrowsprof> UNSUBSCRIBE
<https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor>
UP NEXT: Note-Taking Pairs
Tomorrow's Teaching and
Learning
---------- 2,289 words
----------
Massive Open Online Courses - (A
Further Look)
MOOCs are here to stay. They may or may not solve all of the problems of
higher education across the globe, but the technology to deliver courses to
tens or even hundreds of thousands of pupils at a time is here, and its
power cannot be denied.
There are professors who are going to want to offer MOOCs, and students who
will want to take them. Whether they can find delivery platforms or
business models that will enable them to be economically feasible is still
a question that is being explored.
Although huge numbers of people have signed up for some MOOCs, the evidence
is that most of those who enroll never even start a single assignment, and
that very few complete the courses (Lewin, 2013).
"The best thing about the MOOCs is that they have validated online
education," the president of Southern New Hampshire University told me.
"There is virtue seen in them now that the elite universities have
committed to them."
The president of a large nonprofit university, who did not want his name
mentioned in connection with his response, told me,
In the right setting, these can be fabulous. For adult learners, and as a
supplement for undergraduates, they can be useful. I question the rush to
MOOCs. They are not realistic for most students, with their 90% dropout
rates. And if they are high quality, the costs are not substantially less
than in-class courses. My biggest worry is that some providers could
cheapen the quality of what is offered.
He added that the percentage of 18-year-olds who can manage an online
course is minimal, in his opinion. "The market is adults, and people who
already have degrees, but want to extend their learning."
Ever since the development of the electronic computer, college faculty have
been seeking ways to increasingly connect with each other, and then with
wider audiences. Once they were connected through the Internet, scholars
began to reach out to help each other by sharing ideas and advice. Many
began to post their syllabi online, so that they could illustrate to
colleagues how they were approaching the teaching of their disciplines and
learn from each other.
For several decades, some courses have been offered online, but generally,
most of the courses presented by faculty were visually unappealing,
sometimes offering little more than talking heads and blackboard notes.
Some for-profit providers partnered with faculty, especially at smaller
colleges eager for the extra enrollment dollars that came with these shared
revenue programs. The for-profit providers in the 1990s provided the
delivery platforms and also frequently owned the rights to the content,
regardless of whether they or the faculty developed the material.
These companies were unable to offer academic credit for the coursework and
thus needed academic institutions to partner with them. They provided the
delivery system, and the schools offered the credit for their courses.
This initially usually required at least some on-campus face time between
the students enrolled in the courses and the faculty from the
credit-offering college. The face time could occur on weekends, or during
a summer vacation week.
Accrediting agencies began to crack down on these types of offerings,
generally demanding more traditional faculty involvement or control over
the content of the courses being offered.
Given the inherent proclivity of faculty to share what they know, it was
only a question of time before some professors began to put not just
syllabi but whole course lectures online, for colleagues or interested
persons anywhere to share. Next, some professors began to put all of their
lectures for a given course online, making them freely available to all.
They opened them up to unlimited enrollment, eliminating traditional course
caps. Not only did they put the lectures online, but they provided forums
and notes.
Then, in 2008, a number of major universities set up the OpenCourseWare
Consortium, which now includes more than 250 universities and educational
organizations. The consortium is committed to providing free coursework
across the globe.
This desire to provide open access and share information and opportunities
has undergirded much of the development of the web and its subsequent
evolutions. Freeware and shareware came along, for example, concurrent
with and in response to proprietary software applications that were
developed for PDAs (personal data assistants).
MOOCs originally started as part of this type of movement, albeit MOOCs are
specifically focused on providing expanded educational opportunities.
These open online courses use streaming video, forums, quizzes, and other
interactive techniques not only to simulate live classroom experience, but
to extend well beyond its reach. Streaming video allows professors to
offer materials with uplinks to audio, video, and all types of resources
virtually, relatively simultaneously, and asynchronously. A person taking
the class can participate anywhere; tune in anytime; set up his or her own
shared networks with other users; and, most of all, learn at his or her own
pace and demand.
Advocates for MOOCs point out that developing the class modules will help
the instructors build collections of well-developed presentations they
make, which can be used for other lectures and opportunities. Of course,
many instructors have been doing just that with PowerPoint presentations
for some time now.
According to a MOOC wikispaces guide, benefits of offering MOOCs include
the opportunity for the presenter to learn new things as well "thanks to
the unknown knowledge that pops up as the course participants start to
exchange notes on the course's study," and the ability to make connections
"across disciplines and corporate/institutional walls" ("Benefits and
Challenges of a MOOC," 2013). Challenges of using MOOCs include the fact
that participation requires digital literacy, time and effort, and
"self-regulation" and can feel "chaotic as participants create their own
content" ("Benefits and Challenges of a MOOC," 2013).
There are two other substantive problems. One involves developing secure
ways to test people who take these massive courses. Given the rapid
advances in technology, it is likely that methods of providing fingertip or
eye scans, or other similar biometric methods, will be developed as MOOCs
are being refined. The second problem, providing course credit or
certification, is already in the process of being solved, as colleges and
businesses offering MOOCs and other online educational coursework break
barriers to establish new models of offering and measuring learning.
As of early 2013, only 2.6% of colleges reported having MOOCs, with another
9.4% in the planning stages. Most institutions say they are undecided
about using MOOCs, and a third have no plans to use them. Most of the
nonprofit institutions that are considering the use of MOOCs are research
universities, perhaps because they are the only ones with deep enough
pockets to finance their ventures (Allen & Seaman, 2013, pp.3, 8).
During a webinar hosted by the American Council on Education (ACE) in May
2013, more than 300 academics from across the country were able to log in
to a discussion about MOOCs by faculty who are using them either to teach
with or to supplement their own classes. The webinar dealt with issues
questioning how students benefit from MOOCs, how colleges are integrating
them into their curricula, and how the quality of MOOC learning experiences
can best be assessed.
One of the four panelists was Daphne Koller, cofounder of Coursera, Inc.,
and professor of computer science at Stanford University. She talked about
how valuable the open online courses have been for poor people in remote
parts of our world as well as those with health-related issues, such as a
student with autism who greatly valued his course offering. She stated
that more than 3.6 million students have now signed on for MOOCs, involving
374 courses, and pointed out that the certificates of completion of
courses, even without credits, can help people access job opportunities.
She also noted that online courses can enable the kind of mastery learning
that historically required personal tutoring.
Elizabeth Allan, an associate professor of biology at the University of
Southern Oklahoma and an ACE CREDIT faculty reviewer, talked about the
multiple values of MOOCs, giving the example of an older, returning student
who hoped to go to medical school, using a MOOC to strengthen his ability
to do well in a face-to-face science class the following semester. Two
community college representatives, Barbara Illowsky and Michelle Pilati,
gave examples of the use of MOOCs in their colleges. Illowsky argued that
if 100,000 persons took a MOOC, even with a 94% dropout or failure rate,
that would still mean 6,000 people would complete the course successfully.
"That is more students than I could teach in a lifetime in regular
classes."
MOOCs certainly present a previously undreamed of opportunity to offer
access to education to people wherever in the world they may live. At the
same time, there are cautions in the air. One of the speakers at the
webinar said that many community college faculty in California were
avoiding collaborating with MOOCs because they feared the state would
substitute MOOCs for faculty, as a way to deal with the need for more
access to community college courses. In addition, a Gallup poll released
in May 2013indicated that only a miniscule 3% of college presidents
strongly agreed that MOOCs could improve student learning, and only 2%
strongly agreed that MOOCs will help to solve the financial challenges
facing colleges (Gallup, 2013).
Interestingly, when academic conferences discuss MOOCs, they do so in terms
of the promise they offer, or ways to overcome the obstacles to using these
open online courses most effectively, but they rarely discuss them as
vehicles for competing with for-profit colleges, whose growth represents
such a looming challenge for nonprofit higher education. Undoubtedly, this
is because the for-profits are still not seen as quality rivals, in any
sense. Instead, they are seen as purveyors of inferior programs to
nontraditional students, many of whom are considered not college ready.
The dismissal of the for-profit sector could be considered somewhat
warranted in the past, but it is a huge mistake for the higher education
establishment to close its eyes to the potential of growing quality levels
along with competitiveness developing in some of the for-profit arenas.
The biggest problem for MOOCs is finding a way to monetize them. Even
though MOOCs can enable one professor to reach thousands of students, the
technology and platforms are not free, nor is the professor's time. Most
MOOCs are free right now, and many colleges and experts are trying to find
ways to recover costs or make a profit while using them.
Coursera, Udacity, and edX
Several companies and consortia are in the process of developing ways to
enable massive online courses and monetize them at the same time. Coursera
founders Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller are both computer science professors
at Stanford University.
Presently, all of Coursera's courses are offered at no charge, but some
changes are on the way. Coursera has received about $16 million in venture
capital for the company to expand. It is developing a business model,
because without a way to fund the investment in its work, Coursera cannot
survive.
During the ACE webinar, Koller (2013) stated that the 94% dropout rate from
MOOCs is not really a failure rate and is misleading. She said that many
people log in with no real intention of actually completing the courses.
Of those who indicate seriousness by being what she termed signature
students, she claimed there was a more than 90% successful completion rate.
To fund its programs and growth, Coursera intends to own the platform on
which it provides its classes. Charging students for providing credit for
taking the classes may be a feasible way for Coursera to underwrite the
costs of the programs. Nonetheless, some of its for-profit potential
competitors do not think the present business model will be able to fully
fund the programs.
Coursera has offered several hundred courses in the humanities, science,
and engineering over the last few years. Currently, it provides a platform
for about eight courses, centering on computer science with some math,
economics, and linguistics. In February 2013, ACE endorsed five of its
course offerings. ACE has received funds from the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation to explore how such courses might help students complete college
(Kolowich, 2013).
ACE is not an accrediting agency, however, so it can endorse and recommend
that its member colleges accept Coursera offerings for credit, but that
does not ensure that they will do so. In fact, some faculty groups have
already gone on notice that they are resistant to acceptance of such
credits.
Udacity, MITx (developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), and
edX, the newer version of MITx, are differently structured but similar
ventures looking for ways to turn open online courses into business models
that can offer creditable coursework for reasonable costs while providing
profit centers for the institutions that host them.
Udacity is a private company, founded by another Stanford professor,
Sebastian Thrun, who famously had 160,000 students everywhere on the globe
enroll in his free online class in artificial intelligence in 2012. The
experience was life-changing for the professor, who said that he could not
return to teaching at Stanford again, where he typically lectured to only
20 students in a class (Hsu, 2012). ACE has been exploring recommending
Udacity courses, in addition to those from Coursera.
There has been continued conflict over the use of such courses and their
potential entry into the marketplace is sure to create upheaval in
traditional college enrollments. Interestingly, Sebastian Thrun himself
has decided to have Udacity now concentrate on offering corporate
training. An experiment in offering college courses at San Jose State
University in 2013 was not successful. Thrun said that his online
education medium was not a good fit for the disadvantaged students targeted
by the pilot (Straumsheim, 2013).
References
Allen, I.E., & Seaman, J. (2013, January). Changing course: Ten years of
tracking online education in the United States: Executive summary. Babson
Park, MA: Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC.
Benefits and challenges of a MOOC. (2013, December 3). MoocGuide. Retrieved
from http://moocguide.wikispaces.com/2.+Benefits+and+challenges+of+a+MOOC.
Gallup (2013, May 2). Gallup's college and university president's
panel-inaugural survey findings. Presidents bullish on their institution's
future, but not on massive open online courses and higher education
generally. Executive Summary. Retrieved from
http://www.mtsac.edu/president/board-reports/Gallup_Presidents_Panel_Report.pdf
.
Hsu, J. (2012, January 25). Professor leaving Stanford for online
education startup: Thrun's surprise announcement says he's taking his
college courses to different level. NBC News. Retrieved from
nbcnews.com/id/46138856/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/t/professor-leaving-stanford-online-education-startup/#UdrEh1PrHJw
.
Koller, D. (2013, May 28). MOOCs and the completion agenda: ACE webinar.
Retrieved from
http://www.acenet.edu/events/Pages/MOOCs-and-the-Completion-Agenda.aspx
Kolowich, S. (2013, February 7). American Council on Education recommends 5
MOOCs for credit. *The Chronicle of Higher Education*. Retrieved from
http://chronicle.com/article/American-Counil-on-Education/137155/
Lewin, T. (2013, April 30). Colleges adapt online courses to ease
burden. *New
York Times*, p. A1.
Straumsheim, C. (2013, December 18). Scaling back in San Jose. *Inside
Higher Ed*. Retrieved from
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/12/18/san-jose-state-u-resurrects-scaled-back-online-course-experiment-mooc-provider
"Desktop faculty development 100 times per year."
Over 50,000 subscribers at over 850 institutions in more than 100 countries
TOMORROW'S PROFESSORSM eMAIL NEWSLETTER
<http://cgi.stanford.edu/%7Edept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php>
Archives of all past postings can be found here
<http://cgi.stanford.edu/%7Edept-ctl/cgi-bin/tomprof/postings.php>:
Sponsored by Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning
<http://ctl.stanford.edu>
Check out the Tomorrow's Professor Blog
<http://derekbruff.org/blogs/tomprof/>
NOTE: To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor List click HERE
<https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor>
[image: Tomorrow's Professor Facebook Page]
<http://www.facebook.com/TomorrowsProfessor> [image: Tomorrow's Professor
Twitter] <http://twitter.com/tomorrowsprof>
--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==--++**==
tomorrows-professor mailing list
tomorrows-professor at lists.stanford.edu
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor
--
*"A teacher affects eternity; [she]he can never tell where the influence
stops." - Henry Adams*Dr. Teresa Franklin
Director, The OHIO Group
Professor, Instructional Technology
Fulbright Research Scholar to Turkey 2013-14
Department of Educational Studies
The Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education
Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701
740-541-8847 (cell)
also: franklinteresa at gmail.com
*~~~~~~Ohio University -- The best student-centered learning *experience in
America~~~~
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://listserv.ohio.edu/pipermail/itech/attachments/20150113/436de938/attachment-0001.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 45EC5348-8056-45E0-B523-A82C1ACBB44F[2].png
Type: image/png
Size: 18041 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://listserv.ohio.edu/pipermail/itech/attachments/20150113/436de938/attachment-0001.png
More information about the Itech
mailing list