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"The dramatic increase in online education, particularly Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), presents researchers, academics, administrators, learners, and policy makers with a range of questions as to the effectiveness of this format of teaching and learning. To date, the impact of MOOCs and emerging forms of digital learning has been largely disseminated through press releases and university reports, with only limited peer-reviewed research publication. The proliferation of MOOCs in higher education requires a concerted and urgent research agenda. The MOOC Research Initiative (MRI) will fill this research gap by evaluating MOOCs and how they impact teaching, learning, and education in general."

MOOCs are too new for there to be compelling evidence of their value, cost, and risks. The potential benefits and threats to academic quality, student outcomes, institutional integrity, and administrative processes are not yet known. However, the emerging features of MOOCs that have made them distinctive from the other types of OER are the services integrated with the content. The MOOC platforms for organizing and delivering the multimedia content, integrated with the social media tools for engaging individuals, and the assessment and analytic tools for providing feedback on learning and teaching are critical services that manage the content delivery within a design for learning. These services available through the open enrollment of MOOCs are the additional benefits that have been recognized as valuable by some learners, teachers, and institutions.

The recently announced partnership with the University of Edinburgh presented the team with an opportunity to engage and experiment with the much-publicised MOOC format, and foreground issues related to the theory and practice of online education itself. What follows are some of our perspectives on the planning and development of a large scale open course, what challenges the MOOC presents for delivering a worthwhile educational experience, and what questions this type of course format provokes for a team already teaching and researching in the field of e-learning and technology in higher education.

"I'm a finalist for teaching a Coursera MOOC next year on "The History and Future of Higher Education."  Naturally, I am doing this because I want to improve the future of higher education and add as much innovation as possible.  I'm interested in ways that an online  course with a relatively static form could become a platform for innovation.    And I will use this hastac.org site as a testbed for analysis of the teaching and learning as it is happening and as a place of reflection on the process and possibilities."

"For online learners who took the first session of "Circuits & Electronics," the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's hallmark MOOC, those who worked on course material offline with a classmate or "someone who teaches or has expertise" in the subject did better than those who did not, according to a new paper by researchers at MIT and Harvard University."

After completing the eight-week course, however, I am optimistic that this kind of MOOC will not eat my job because it and I are not really in the same business. At Ursinus College, where I teach, the faculty and administration work individually and collectively to help our students cultivate judgment, the capacity to decide what to think or how to act in areas, like health policy, where no formula can generate the right answer. While we cannot help our students without demanding that they take an active role in their education, we also assume that they do not come in with their judgments already cultivated. College should be a transformative experience for them, and they will need guidance.

"Two professors at the University of Texas at Austin have given birth to a new term, SMOC, which stands for "synchronous massive online class." How's it different? The Wall Street Journal describes it as "somewhere between a MOOC...a late night television show and a real-time research experiment," where "students, professors and teaching assistants [are required] to be online at the same time." Running what appears to be a live MOOC doesn't come cheap: the two professors admitted they needed 125 school employees to run the show. And that may be why they're hoping to charge non-UT students for their intro to psychology SMOC"

"Amid the various influences that massive open online courses have had on higher education in their short life so far -- the topic of a daylong conference here Monday -- this may be among the more unexpected: The courses may be prompting some faculty to pay more attention to their teaching styles than they ever have before."

n this class, we will briefly cover the history and development of MOOCs. Participants will engage in discussions about why institutions offer these courses, and the possible benefits to both schools and students. This four-week course will examine MOOCs from four perspectives: as a designer building a course, as an instructor, as a student, and as an institution offering and supporting a course. Cost: Free Dates: April 15-May 12, 2013

In Fall 2011, Stanford announced three, free massively open online courses, or MOOCs. Two of these courses, database and machine learning, corresponded to spring 2012 courses that I would be teaching at Vanderbilt University. I recognized that I could use the lecture materials from these classes to "flip" my own classes by having students view lectures before the class meeting, which then could be used for other learning activities.

This is an online course to help you understand better how to use technology to enhance your teaching practice. The course is aimed primarily at people teaching at Higher Education level, whether in Higher Education Institutions or Further Education Colleges.

I opened my portion by emphasizing that the current IT-driven disruption is not actually about information technology but is, rather, about pedagogy. I'll take this opportunity to state my view again: the focus of this disruption should be on teaching and learning. However, I believe that there is value in having the IT organization take an active role in helping the institution to embrace this change, even going so far as to move onto "point" for change.

"pedagogy has become a much more complicated process that has evolved from an art that one can acquire by oneself to a subject requiring formal preparation. The need for such training is all the more urgent because of the conditions that many graduate students will encounter in their professional careers. Only one-quarter of the recent Ph.D.'s seeking academic careers are finding jobs in research universities. Most of the others obtain positions in institutions with students who tend to be less motivated and less prepared for college than the undergraduates their teachers knew, and teaching them successfully will be a greater challenge."

The Open Learning Initiative offers online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach. Our aim is to combine open, high-quality courses, continuous feedback, and research to improve learning and transform higher education.

"In the business world, this is called outsourcing. Perhaps the colleges that utilize this model never would have hired anyone to teach those courses in the first place. Perhaps not. What we can be certain of though is that as long as this option is available, these small colleges will never be fully funded again."

"In the last six months the economic model of a scarcity of teaching resources justifying a rationing of education has been changed to a free commodity model of unlimited availability and world-class quality education. This changes everything."

"Unlike most MOOC's, which seek to teach as large a group of students as possible, UnderAcademy caps enrollment in each course at 15, with the idea that students should shape the courses and have a more personal learning experience. "

"teaching a course using someone else's instructional media is out of alignment with the occupational model. Taken to its extreme, it  reduces the academic to the status of a "mere teacher"; no longer an "expert", and nothing grander than a K12 teacher. This is not a status or identity to which most traditional academics aspire."

Harvard University on Monday became the latest elite institution that will seek to organize its online education offerings with the creation of a high-ranking administrative position. Although not a widespread practice, early adopters say institutions should consider following suit sooner rather than later.