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Also swelling is the number of adjuncts. They now make up 50 to 75 percent of those teaching in higher education. Why colleges rely so much on adjuncts has been discussed thoughtfully and at length elsewhere; chief among the reasons are that they are not as expensive as tenure-track professors, their scheduling can more easily align with the needs of the college, and firing them is not fraught with the same peril as firing full-time faculty members. It should hardly come as a surprise that all of the factors that make adjuncts attractive to administrators make them equally attractive to union organizers. For example, at Washington University in St. Louis, where adjuncts voted 138 to 111 in favor of organizing, the core issues were low wages, lack of benefits, and lack of job security.

Does it mean MOOCs are dead? Not really. It just means they aren't the massive world revolution none of us thought they were anyway. And it also suggests that universities, far from being swept away by MOOCs, are in fact the home of MOOCs. You see, MOOCs make sense as an adjunct to university business, they don't really make sense as a stand alone offering. One wonders if the likes of Shirky will be writing about how wonderful the university model of open education is. So in the end, far from being a portent of doom of the university model, MOOCs are a validation of universities and their robustness.

Anyway, where does this leave us? Does it mean MOOCs are dead? Not really. It just means they aren’t the massive world revolution none of us thought they were anyway. And it also suggests that universities, far from being swept away by MOOCs, are in fact the home of MOOCs. You see, MOOCs make sense as an adjunct to university business, they don’t really make sense as a stand alone offering.

It’s also worth noting the incredible irony here. MOOCs were supposed to be the device that would bring higher education to the masses. However, the masses at San Jose State don’t appear to be ready for the commodified, impersonal higher education that MOOCs offer without the guidance that living, breathing professors provide to people negotiating its rocky shores for the first time. People need people.