ACA Seminar Making Sense of the MOOCs. Brussels, 10 October MOOCs best practices and worst challenges Rolf Hoffmann

Transcription

1 ACA Seminar Making Sense of the MOOCs Brussels, 10 October 2013 MOOCs best practices and worst challenges Rolf Hoffmann

2 online education in the U.S. actors, instruments and platforms drivers differences and commonalities with Europe future challenges and scenarios

3 online education in the U.S. blended learning (web-enhanced, hybrid, online) distance learning for credit, at cost, campus-based for credit, at cost, off-campus MOOCs not for credit, no-cost, off-campus

4 actors, instruments and platforms university (for profit or non-for profit, state and private, from community college to research unversity ) Phoenix, OU, Berkeley, Stanford.. university consortia edx (MIT, Harvard, Berkeley etc) platforms (for profit) Udacity, Coursera, Udemy, NovoEd + 30 more

5 Udacity Founded by Sebastian Thrun (former Stanford faculty); free online university classes, open, for everyone, high quality content taught by top faculty, no credit; (new: online master program at Georgia Tech (+AT&T) for credit, at cost ) Coursera Venture-capital financed start-up, founded by 2 former Stanford faculty, offers online classes together with universities; platform by Coursera, content by university; interactive online tutoring, peer-grading; sells data, offers at cost signature track courses (individual student markers) and different teaching formats; 5 million participants, 490 courses offered, 5 ACE-approved for credit, international partners; SJSU example..

6 Udemy market place online teaching platform (everybody can teach ), revenue-driven (70/30), not focused on academe, courses, 1.5 million students, special offers for universities (fee-waivers etc), costs US$ per course NovoEd Founded 2 years ago by Stanford faculty, provides high-quality online platform and tutoring for small group of quality partner institutions; content, grades and credits by partners (Babson), focus on social and collaborative learning; edx MIT/Harvard-initiated university collaboration free open online courses, certificate of completion for small fee,

7 the market. 20 million students 60% work part-time, only 55% finish college average 4-year college degree takes 5-6 years to finish lowest possible cost: CC US$ 2500/year, 4-year college US$ 9000/year, professional master degree US$ /year 62% of colleges offer online courses 1/3 of all US students are enrolled in online degree programs

8 2/3 of all US CAO s believe full online programs will be the future; largest schools in the lead (they are also most innovative) 70% of US higher ed. CAO s agree that online ed. is important for institutional strategy Majority believes in fully online programs Little increase in hybrids/blended courses they cost double 50% believe that online teaching takes more faculty time and effort Faculty acceptance not crucial for expanding online education, but lower retention rates are (grown over time) 22% report learning outcomes in online ed. as inferior (down from 60%) Taken from: Babson Survey 2012/Sloan Consortium

9 market drivers of online education: placement of for-profit products in higher ed. revenue for institutions mass education, professional programs (extension school programs (adult and continued learning) master programs, e.g. MPH Berkeley..); non-resident students, lower costs for students work-study balance, home residency,

10 institutional drivers of online education: increasing the number of (online) students and number of degrees improving quality of course and better rating in degrees generate data for research in education Create new teaching models, e.g. classroom+mooc = SPOC (small private online class) or flipped classrooms

11 Why MOOCs? Trends driving change (Sloan Consortium): Democratization of Knowledge and Access Contestability of Markets and Funding Digital Technology good PR for institutions, global push, changing nature of students (the way they learn), changing nature of the credentials; Prediction: (Sloan Consortium) Alternative programs will emerge (cheaper programs) Faculty roles will change dramatically Policies/accreditation systems needs to change Continuing shift to more work/skill-oriented degree programs that response to workforce needs, i.e. new and shorter pathways to degrees

12 US - Europe differences and commonalities mission and structure of higher education institutions U.S. : college graduate school professional schools Carnegie classification professional vs. academic training student population

13 US - Europe differences and commonalities typical online target groups in the U.S. for blended learning/flipped classrooms, SPOCs, MOOCs: bachelor programs WHY? for MOOCs, distance learning: master programs, professional programs, continued education, extension schools WHY?

14 US - Europe differences and commonalities typical online target groups. not so different after all, but for different reasons.?

15 Where are we now? no standard business model for MOOCs exists online classroom success differs dramatically and so do interpretations thereof are MOOCs financially sustainable? Education is a $1-trillion market and growing in an education market MOOCs can make money for their providers by: charging for certification charging for assessment and credit data mining cross-selling/up-selling the Amazon-ization of education?

16 Where are we now? further issues to debate: intellectual property identity and credit MOOCs fit into the institution s elearning strategy textbook compatibility :..textbook publishers are totally at a loss how to react to MOOCs, they cannot change their business models quickly, they are like IBM 30 years ago with Apple and Microsoft in their neck.. IT and pedagogy who s the tail, who s the dog? Who drives decisions, who develops business models?..the academy must lead the change! (B. Voss, vice president and CIO at UMD College Park)

17 Where are we now? Are we at the transit point to a new educational model? Is online education creating an higher ed imperialism by signing up top-institutions only worldwide and then creating a single worldwide top standard of learning and teaching? Would Stanford (et al.) care about future of other institutions and faculty worldwide? Who defines online ethics, who accredits online courses?

18 but alas, the future scenario (as predicted by a platform entrepeneur..) number of students will go up number of teachers will go up internet speed will improve big lectures will be out undifferentiated schools will be out online degree options from all premier branches/schools