IAFOR MOOC Links

there is no way to put a positive spin on my experience with the MOOC I’m enrolled in through Coursera, Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application

Group work can provide meaningful learning, in the right context with the support of a sound instructional strategy. The example here from the class, Fundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application demonstrates why a sound strategy is needed, and what happens when one is lacking. MOOCs require a unique instructional strategy, one that is different from small online courses. What exactly the strategy to follow is under discussion. It is through the courses, such as this one that institutions can learn what works and does not. I give the instructor credit for trying something new, and investing the time and energy she has done which is considerable.

The pundits and disrupters, many of whom enjoyed liberal-arts educations at elite colleges, herald a revolution in higher education that is not for people like them or their children, but for others: less-wealthy, less-prepared students who are increasingly cut off from the dream of a traditional college education.

David Stavens, a founder of the MOOC provider Udacity, as conceding that "there's a magic that goes on inside a university campus that, if you can afford to live inside that bubble, is wonderful."

"The whole MOOC thing is mass psychosis," a case of people "just throwing spaghetti against the wall" to see what sticks, says Peter J. Stokes, executive director for postsecondary innovation at Northeastern's College of Professional Studies. His job is to study the effectiveness of ideas that are emerging or already in practice.

And in my opinion, completion rates aren't a very good measure of success. That's applying a rubric that makes more sense in traditional education than in a MOOC. In a way, it's kind of like asking what the completion rate is for Metafilter. The more interesting (albeit more difficult to measure) metric is how much comprehension a student acquires relative to the amount of time she invests. I think the next generation of MOOCs will be a lot more fluid, with "students" coming and going and spinning off into separate groups and regrouping on the fly. That is, they'll become less like a classroom and more like the internet.posted by roll truck roll at 21:56 on February 4 [+] [!]

That is, they'll become less like a classroom and more like the internet. That's an interesting suggestion, but it leads me to wonder why the whole MOOC thing in the first place? If the end-state is basically "the Internet," which we already have, what exactly is the value-add of the MOOC part? Why not just hang out on a specialist forum dedicated to whatever you're interested in, then? That's something we have already and it seems like an awful lot of effort to reinvent that particular wheel, if we really think that's how it'll shake out. And if the value add is in the certification and the testing, then really what you have are slightly less-sleazy versions of those for-profit universities that offer "degrees based on life experience", no?

I can tell you in that IT companies are already taking certifications of completions in these kinds of courses seriously. I'm taking one right now -- mandatory from my employer.posted by empath at 6:24 on February 5 [+] [!]

"MOOC's Law" holds that the amount of bullshit packaged as online coursework doubles approximately every two years.

The missing piece is a caveat in Coursera’s terms of service that prohibits the use of Coursera’s MOOCs for anything but informal education.

“You may not take any Online Course offered by Coursera,” stipulate the terms, “or use any Letter of Completion as part of any tuition-based or for-credit certification or program for any college, university, or other academic institution without the express written permission from Coursera.”

The nonprofit MOOC provider, edX, has made "openness" a major part of its PR message, often to position itself as the more collaborative and less money-oriented player in the market. But edX's terms of service also place limits on the extent to which outsiders can avail themselves of edX content. "Unless otherwise expressly stated on the Site, the texts, exams, video, images and other instructional materials provided with the courses offered on this Site are for your personal use in connection with those courses only," read the site's legal notice.