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The challenge: identifying the best approaches, which vary from campus to campus. "Boards are either overreacting, saying we should have added MOOCs yesterday, or they're underreacting," says David W. Strauss, a principal with the Art & Science Group, a higher-education consulting firm based in Baltimore. "We know you can't be frozen right now."

"this apparent lack of a need for a definition is exactly why we need to slow things down and figure out what the heck we're talking about."

"As much as I don't want to say this, I don't think there's a chance in hell that MOOCs will die on their own. I can't think of any trend which saved large institutitions money and trouble, then died a natural death. And faculty can't defend against them - we have been made powerless very slowly, over a long period of administrative takeover and public apathy (or even antipathy in our new era of anti-intellectualism). What happened at SJSU and Amherst is the exception  - an exception I applaud, but an exception. The public perceives faculty objections to MOOCs as an issue of job security rather than quality."

Amherst's Chair of Neuroscience Stephen A. George led the faculty rejection of edX. It wasn't a rejection of online learning or open resources or the idea of making entire courses available for free online that they rejected, he said. "It was just the massive, synchronous MOOC that didn't seem to fit" with the school's mission and identity.

" Instructors will offer a "special 'flipped' version of an electrical engineering course ... where students watch online lectures from Harvard and MIT at home." So the good is the flipped part because it's more interactive and dynamic and there's less lecture-based didacticism in the classroom due to watching videos at home? Really? The 1970s just called: they want their Open University courses back. This model perhaps moves the Cal State system forward as it offers more accessibility to content for working adults in a hybrid format. I wish they would just step away from the MOOC terminology, which is, let's be honest, copying and lending out a videotape in another name."

That's where my TEDx experience becomes a tale of two TEDs. There is TEDx and there is TED. TEDxStanford, and similar grassroots-organized TEDx events, are community-based events, made strong by the lived experience of those in the community. We were together in that space, part of a group that largely felt connected, welcoming, and accessible. We laughed together, we cried together, we ate meals together, we held our breaths together when a presenter seemed to stumble on a word, and at the end, we hugged complete strangers like we were leaving summer camp…together. Then there is TED, the expensive, "unassailable" events. While I am sure that some TED attendees feel some of the things TEDx folks feel, TED looks from the outside more like an exclusive social club than summer camp.

"Duneier's "defection" - as the Chronicle put it - is particularly interesting considering he wasn't just considered a MOOC convert, but a model MOOC instructor. His decision is also worth noting given that while many professors see MOOCs as a threat, Duneier himself isn't directly threatened by their encroachment."

"Although schools will open in Philadelphia next week, the district and the city have a long year ahead of them while Governor Corbett's charter movement continues to gain strength. In a year or two, we will all look back at this historic event and talk about how Tom Corbett turned the School District of Philadelphia into Sodom and Gomorrah."

Five trustees have bolted from Thunderbird since the $66-million deal was announced, in March, saying the relationship with Laureate will damage the business school's brand and erode academic quality. The move is pending approval by the school's accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, in October.

""Tiffin University must disengage from our business relationship with Altius," Paul Marion, Tiffin's president, confirmed in an interview."

For these reasons, the SUNYCoW opposes the prospect that MOOCs--or any other form of massive-scale instruction--might be accepted for credit in writing, especially in satisfaction of SUNY's Basic Communication requirement. Completion of the Writing requirement should always involve close work with a faculty member who can provide students mentorship, careful assessment and a genuine sense of a human audience.

"The Academic Senate is expected to vote on Monday on a proposed policy that would forbid the university to sign contracts with outside technology providers without the approval of tenured and tenure-track faculty members in whatever department would be affected."

"While there's no doubt that a college degree increases earning power and broadens opportunities, today's high cost of education means it makes sense to more carefully consider which degree you earn. When it comes to return on investment (ROI), not all degrees are considered equal. This article exposes eight college degrees with poor ROI. "

"The profile quoted Mr. Thrun as saying the Udacity MOOCs were "a lousy product" and "not a good fit" for disadvantaged students, unleashing a torrent of commentary in the higher-education blogosphere."

"I think there may be a certain type of learner that this works for - someone who is highly motivated and purposeful, who is seeking out specific knowledge. And someone who does not require much human interaction - because in spite of the rhetoric about personalization, lectures are inherently impersonal, and videos of lectures are doubly so.   So if the MOOC is ushering in a golden age, democratizing access to knowledge, it seems to have hit a bit of a bump. I think the bump in the road is the learner."

Under the supervision of the instructor - there's the rub. I don't mean a kind of aloof, checking-your-Facebook-while-students-work kind of "supervision" but rather the kind of interactive engagement that a coach might have with his or her players while they practice. The coach doesn't do the exercises for the players, but neither does s/he stand off to the side and let them flail around the entire time. There is interaction between the coach and the player, between different players, and between different groups of players. And through that interaction, questions get answered, others get raised - and things get learned, if it's done right.

Plenty of smart observers, however, say that the problem with Altius was its overreach, and that the system worked.

Since 2012 many people have expressed the opinion that MOOCs will, or have the potential to, change higher education. However, before MOOCs begin transforming the manner in which higher education operates in the United States, there are at least a few current educational policies and practices that will hinder the advancement of MOOCs.

Completion rates and grades were worse than for those who took traditional campus-style classes. And the students who did best weren't the underserved students San Jose most wanted to reach. It wasn't really proving to be cheaper, either, says Peter Hadreas, the chairman of San Jose State's philosophy department.

The reason is that the top universities do not offer the best teaching and learning experiences. Instead, their faculty members are incentivized heavily to focus on research at the expense of teaching. If a professor seeking tenure at one of these institutions receives a teaching award, it is often said that that professor has just received the kiss of death for her tenure hopes. If students learn at these institutions, it's often not because the teaching is so good, but because the students are so talented that they can absorb anything thrown at them (and it's worth noting that just because a professor is entertaining, does not mean it's a good learning experience).