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Massive Open Online Courses MOOC (Noun) MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses MOOC (noun) Massive Open Online Course, a term used to describe web technologies that have enabled educators to create virtual classrooms of thousands of students. Typical MOOCs involve a series of 10-20 minute lectures with built-in quizzes, weekly auto-graded assignments, and TA/professor moderated discussion forums. Notable companies include Coursera, edX, and Udacity. 1 THE HISTORY OF DISTANCE LEARNING 1 THE HISTORY OF DISTANCE LEARNING 2000s 1960s 1920s 1840s ONLINE TV RADIO MAIL As technology has evolved, so has distance learning. It began with mailing books and syllabi to students, then radio lectures, then tv courses, and now online courses. 2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? 2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? Beginning with the first correspondence courses in the 1890s from Columbia University, distance learning has been an important means of making higher education available to the masses. As technology has evolved, so has distance learning; and in just the last 5 years a new form of education has arisen, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). MOOCs are becoming increasingly popular all over the world and the means by which learning is measured, evaluated, and accredited has become topic of controversy in higher education. 2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? Short (10-20 minute) lectures recorded specifically for online. Quizzes that are usually integrated into lectures. 2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? TA / Professor moderated discussion forums. Letters, badges, or certificate of completion. 2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? Graded assignments with set due dates (graded by computer). Large class sizes (often tens of thousands of students). 3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES 3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES The modern MOOC began with an open Computer Science course at Stanford, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, taught by Professor Sebastian Thrun in 2011. The wildly successful course, with 160,000 students in attendance, led Thrun (along with his colleagues David Stavens and Mike Sokolsky) to create Udacity in 2012, kicking o! MOOC mania. 3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES DATE FOUNDED 2012 April 2012 Feb 2012 FOUNDED Andrew Ng Anant Agarwal Sebastian Thrun BY (Stanford) MIT and Harvard Mike Sokolsky Daphne Koller President (MIT) David Stavens (Stanford) (Stanford) WHY Enable the best Bring education to the Expanded after huge FOUNDED professors to teach masses & research popularity of initial tens or hundreds of how students learn experimental AI course. thousands of and how technology students. To serve can transform students who were learning. not enrolled on a traditional campus. 3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES REVENUE For-Profit. Non-Profit. For-Profit. MODEL Revenue through Revenue through Revenue through retail Amazon a"liate retail partners like partners like textbook program. textbook suppliers. suppliers. Signature Track: Udacity Career $30-100 for course Placement Program. credit. $60-90 proctored exams. Coursera Career Services. 3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES PROFIT Partner universities University Produced: Courses produced SHARING get 6-15% of gross edX collects first $50k in-house independent revenue, plus 20% of generated by course, of universities. profits generated by $10k for recurring “aggregate set of courses. University courses provided by gets 50% of all further the university”. revenue. edX Produced: Costs $250k for each new course, $50k for additional terms. University gets 70% of revenue. 3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES CREDIT Identity verified, Universities accept MODEL “Signature Track” credit after completion courses o!er accredited of certificate & final. completion certificate. REACH 62 Colleges and 675,000 Registered 400,000 Users. Universities. Users. 22 active courses. 2.8 Million Registered 12 Universities. Users. 24 Classes. 337 courses. 4 CONTROVERSY 4 CONTROVERSY As MOOCs become increasingly popular all over the world, the means by which learning is measured, evaluated, and credited is a topic of controversy in higher education. Some courses have already been accredited and universities are beginning to accept transfer credit for completing MOOCs. These companies have quickly grown in size and hype, and their rapid growth has led to many questions around how MOOCs may shape the future of higher education. Coursera, Udacity, and edX were not originally meant to grant credit, and the recent push from administrators to enable students to earn credit for the successful completion of a MOOC raises many questions. 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY 5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY What are people saying? "MOOCs are just the tip of the iceberg," said John Mitchell, professor of computer science and Stanford's first vice provost for online learning. "One of the great things about online technology is we can produce one kind of material – a video, an interactive session, an experimental laboratory that is online – and use it in multiple di!erent ways. We're evolving our way of presenting educational material." 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Professors Credit: 72% of professors say students should NOT earn units for MOOCs. Cons: 55% say teaching a MOOC diverts their attention away from their existing responsibilities on campus. Pros: MOOCs have the potential to greatly further the spread of higher knowledge and help individual professors gain larger recognition for their work. Some professors report having higher engagement with their students, and believe MOOCs will produce a larger number of solutions for projects and assignments, as many more students will be participating. 5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Presidents Presidents remain unpersuaded by, if not skeptical of, MOOC mania. Only 14 percent of presidents strongly agree, and another 28 percent agree, that massive open online courses have “great potential to make a positive impact” on higher education; 31 percent disagree or strongly disagree, and the rest are neutral. 5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Registrars The biggest concern remains how to keep the integrity of the student record. If a student is attempting to receive credit for completing a MOOC course, how does a university verify the student’s identity and that that student completed the assignments and passed the exams? Needs: Keeping constantly informed about the issues surrounding MOOCs will help Registrars fully support the needs of their faculty and students. 5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Legislators Legislators are primarily concerned with remedying the problems of accessibility and a!ordability in public higher education. Many public institutions struggle with over-enrollment in core classes necessary for graduation and MOOCs have the potential to help students complete their degrees on time. By passing legislation to permit the teaching of core classes using MOOCs, legislators and universities stand to gain huge cost savings. 5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Librarians The biggest challenge will be in supporting the resource needs of their institution’s courses. The open nature of a MOOCs course necessitates using content with open copyrights. 5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Employers MOOCs will provide new opportunities to help employers find and evaluate candidates. In the future, employers will be able to purchase access to student names and accomplishments and students can leverage their new skills to land better jobs. 5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Students MOOC courses have been met with resistance from tuition-paying students who want distinct experiences for the amount of money they pay. 6 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE? 56 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE? In the future we may see major changes, driven by the rise of MOOCs, in the way higher education institutions measure achievement, o!er courses, and earn revenue. Universities hit hard by budget cuts may o#oad the economic burden of lower-level courses like introductory mathematics to MOOC providers to focus e!orts on upper-division courses. 56 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE? The student transcript may shift from measuring achievement in Carnegie credit hours to instead recording competency-based accomplishments. The university structure itself could dramatically shift; lower level universities might become facilitators for online courses, hiring instructors skilled in education facilitation rather than research. 7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO? 5 7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO? Universities Research must be done to evaluate the e!ectiveness and future of MOOCs. Universities are running pilot programs with MOOC providers with select classes to test their feasibility, such as San Jose State University’s Udacity math classes. SJSU is currently o!ering 3 classes for credit, open to anyone. Beginning June 1, Edx will be available as an open source learning platform. Stanford will integrate features of its existing Class2Go open source online learning platform into the edX platform. 5 7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO? MOOC Providers The companies themselves are collecting data on every interaction they have with students. The researchers behind each provider hope to use that data to support the argument in favor of the expansion of MOOCs. Coursera is using the data collected from the thousands of students in its 30+ classes to study the most e!ective teaching methods. 5 7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO? Government The California State Senate is currently considering a bill (SB520) that, if passed, would
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