That's upping the ante! "Previously, Google tried online education with Course Builder, a free tool for building MOOCs; the company plans to fold that project into MOOC.org, which will live on Google servers. The company has pledged to devote its development expertise to MOOC.org's open-source platform, which will be called Open edX."

Millions of dollars are poured in this project. As the article states, tuition could creep to normal levels once the initial money runs out. Still, it's an interesting experiment.

What the article doesn't mention is this, lifted from another recent article in Chronicles: But that plan, too, could encounter institutional challenges. Benjamin Flowers, chair of the university's graduate curriculum committee, says he and his colleagues have "at no point been given, to review, any written proposal for any new graduate degree program." Officials seem to have circumvented the committee by casting the Udacity partnership as a "modification" of an existing computer-science master's program, says Mr. Flowers. He says his committee is not done with the Udacity proposal, and may raise the issue in the university's faculty senate when the body reconvenes this fall.

Some of the hot topics debated within Educause.

I think we're on the right track as a group, spending time looking into how we carry out business at UNB re. distance/online ed first, then deciding whether we want to jump on the bandwagon.

Coursera does an about-face, wants to compete with Blackboard instead.

Duke U. bailing out of an online program.

I wonder if it would be necessary to strike a deal with one of the MOOC 'distributors' to incorporate one of their MOOCs into our curriculum. What if, for example, UNB decided to incorporate a MOOC as resource material in one of our own courses, and leave it to a TA to manage discussions, assignments, tests, tutorials and so on at this end?

DISTANCE & ONLINE SUBCOMMITTEE

1. Joss Richer (Chair)


2. Bobby Ogilvie


3. Ben Steeves


4. Brock Parks


5. Others?

 

Terms of Reference for Subcommittee

Scope: Keep it technical -- look at MOOCs, social media, mobile technology

Out of scope: Implications vis-à-vis collective agreement at UNB (role of IotT committee)

Focus of subcommittee's activities:

1. Build understanding & awareness re. technologies & models


2. SWOT of each technology / model


3. Survey other institutions in N. America


4. Determine range of possible responses (courses of action)


5. Evaluate implications of various responses (ignore & do nothing; compete; partner; evolve & adapt)


6. Recommend course of action in UNB context