Wooster Horizon Group

Will MOOCs open elite universities to excessive corporate influence? (essay)

Study finds that liberal arts colleges are disappearing

xEducation is a book that George Siemens, Bonnie Stewart, and Dave Cormier have agreed (and been contracted) to write for Johns Hopkins University Press. We expect the book will be published in mid-2013. Our focus is on sidestepping the rather substantial hype around educational reform, particularly from the technological angle, and present a solid discussion of the scope and nature of higher education (HE) change.

All industries have to cope with the disruption of the unfolding digital revolution, and education is no exception. This multi-faceted disruption can be seen in the new wave of MOOCs. The arrival of 'massive open online courses' appears to be another tectonic shift in the evolution of higher education and HE internationalisation. MOOCs are free of charge, designed for large numbers of people to take them at once, encourage peer-to-peer learning, and award certificates rather than academic course credit. This article, the first of a short series on disruptive innovation in HE, describes three new start-ups - Coursera, edX and Udacity - and explores the challenges they pose to traditional models of delivery in higher education.

The article discusses the online learning website Coursera, which was founded by Stanford University professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller in an attempt to provide free online courses. The services are offered to and taken by students from around world, and Ng and Koller believe that their method is changing traditional standards for lecturing by forcing students to be interactive and engaged during the lecture. Topics include how Coursera will ultimately earn revenue, the economic benefit of online education for top-level universities, and a list of other free online education programs, including EDX, the Minerva Project, and Udacity

U. of Texas aims to use MOOCs to reduce costs, increase completion