Massive Open Online Courses

MOOCs Massive Open Online Courses

MOOC (noun) Massive Open Online Course, a term used to describe web technologies that have enabled educators to create virtual classrooms of thousands of students. Typical MOOCs involve a series of 10-20 minute lectures with built-in quizzes, weekly auto-graded assignments, and TA/professor moderated discussion forums. Notable companies include Coursera, edx, and Udacity.

1 THE HISTORY OF DISTANCE LEARNING

1 THE HISTORY OF DISTANCE LEARNING 2000s 1960s 1920s 1840s MAIL RADIO TV ONLINE As technology has evolved, so has distance learning. It began with mailing books and syllabi to students, then radio lectures, then tv courses, and now online courses.

2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT?

2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? Beginning with the first correspondence courses in the 1890s from Columbia University, distance learning has been an important means of making higher education available to the masses. As technology has evolved, so has distance learning; and in just the last 5 years a new form of education has arisen, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). MOOCs are becoming increasingly popular all over the world and the means by which learning is measured, evaluated, and accredited has become topic of controversy in higher education.

2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? Short (10-20 minute) lectures recorded specifically for online. Quizzes that are usually integrated into lectures.

2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? TA / Professor moderated discussion forums. Letters, badges, or certificate of completion.

2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT? Graded assignments with set due dates (graded by computer). Large class sizes (often tens of thousands of students).

3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES

3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES The modern MOOC began with an open Computer Science course at Stanford, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, taught by Professor Sebastian Thrun in 2011. The wildly successful course, with 160,000 students in attendance, led Thrun (along with his colleagues David Stavens and Mike Sokolsky) to create Udacity in 2012, kicking off MOOC mania.

3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES DATE FOUNDED 2012 April 2012 Feb 2012 FOUNDED BY Andrew Ng (Stanford) Daphne Koller (Stanford) Anant Agarwal MIT and Harvard President (MIT) Sebastian Thrun Mike Sokolsky David Stavens (Stanford) WHY FOUNDED Enable the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students. To serve students who were not enrolled on a traditional campus. Bring education to the masses & research how students learn and how technology can transform learning. Expanded after huge popularity of initial experimental AI course.

3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES REVENUE MODEL For-Profit. Non-Profit. For-Profit. Revenue through Amazon affiliate program. Revenue through retail partners like textbook suppliers. Revenue through retail partners like textbook suppliers. Signature Track: $30-100 for course credit. Udacity Career Placement Program. $60-90 proctored exams. Coursera Career Services.

3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES PROFIT SHARING Partner universities get 6-15% of gross revenue, plus 20% of profits generated by aggregate set of courses provided by the university. University Produced: edx collects first $50k generated by course, $10k for recurring courses. University gets 50% of all further revenue. Courses produced in-house independent of universities. edx Produced: Costs $250k for each new course, $50k for additional terms. University gets 70% of revenue.

3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES CREDIT MODEL Identity verified, Signature Track courses offer accredited completion certificate. Universities accept credit after completion of certificate & final. REACH 62 Colleges and Universities. 2.8 Million Registered Users. 337 courses. 675,000 Registered Users. 12 Universities. 24 Classes. 400,000 Users. 22 active courses.

4 CONTROVERSY

4 CONTROVERSY As MOOCs become increasingly popular all over the world, the means by which learning is measured, evaluated, and credited is a topic of controversy in higher education. Some courses have already been accredited and universities are beginning to accept transfer credit for completing MOOCs. These companies have quickly grown in size and hype, and their rapid growth has led to many questions around how MOOCs may shape the future of higher education. Coursera, Udacity, and edx were not originally meant to grant credit, and the recent push from administrators to enable students to earn credit for the successful completion of a MOOC raises many questions.

5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY

5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY What are people saying? "MOOCs are just the tip of the iceberg," said John Mitchell, professor of computer science and Stanford's first vice provost for online learning. "One of the great things about online technology is we can produce one kind of material a video, an interactive session, an experimental laboratory that is online and use it in multiple different ways. We're evolving our way of presenting educational material."

5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Professors Credit: 72% of professors say students should NOT earn units for MOOCs. Cons: 55% say teaching a MOOC diverts their attention away from their existing responsibilities on campus. Pros: MOOCs have the potential to greatly further the spread of higher knowledge and help individual professors gain larger recognition for their work. Some professors report having higher engagement with their students, and believe MOOCs will produce a larger number of solutions for projects and assignments, as many more students will be participating.

5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Presidents Presidents remain unpersuaded by, if not skeptical of, MOOC mania. Only 14 percent of presidents strongly agree, and another 28 percent agree, that massive open online courses have great potential to make a positive impact on higher education; 31 percent disagree or strongly disagree, and the rest are neutral.

5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Registrars The biggest concern remains how to keep the integrity of the student record. If a student is attempting to receive credit for completing a MOOC course, how does a university verify the student s identity and that that student completed the assignments and passed the exams? Needs: Keeping constantly informed about the issues surrounding MOOCs will help Registrars fully support the needs of their faculty and students.

5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Legislators Legislators are primarily concerned with remedying the problems of accessibility and affordability in public higher education. Many public institutions struggle with over-enrollment in core classes necessary for graduation and MOOCs have the potential to help students complete their degrees on time. By passing legislation to permit the teaching of core classes using MOOCs, legislators and universities stand to gain huge cost savings.

5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Librarians The biggest challenge will be in supporting the resource needs of their institution s courses. The open nature of a MOOCs course necessitates using content with open copyrights.

5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Employers MOOCs will provide new opportunities to help employers find and evaluate candidates. In the future, employers will be able to purchase access to student names and accomplishments and students can leverage their new skills to land better jobs.

5 5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY Students MOOC courses have been met with resistance from tuition-paying students who want distinct experiences for the amount of money they pay.

6 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE?

5 6 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE? In the future we may see major changes, driven by the rise of MOOCs, in the way higher education institutions measure achievement, offer courses, and earn revenue. Universities hit hard by budget cuts may offload the economic burden of lower-level courses like introductory mathematics to MOOC providers to focus efforts on upper-division courses.

5 6 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE? The student transcript may shift from measuring achievement in Carnegie credit hours to instead recording competency-based accomplishments. The university structure itself could dramatically shift; lower level universities might become facilitators for online courses, hiring instructors skilled in education facilitation rather than research.

7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO?

5 7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO? Universities Research must be done to evaluate the effectiveness and future of MOOCs. Universities are running pilot programs with MOOC providers with select classes to test their feasibility, such as San Jose State University s Udacity math classes. SJSU is currently offering 3 classes for credit, open to anyone. Beginning June 1, Edx will be available as an open source learning platform. Stanford will integrate features of its existing Class2Go open source online learning platform into the edx platform.

5 7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO? MOOC Providers The companies themselves are collecting data on every interaction they have with students. The researchers behind each provider hope to use that data to support the argument in favor of the expansion of MOOCs. Coursera is using the data collected from the thousands of students in its 30+ classes to study the most effective teaching methods.

5 7 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO? Government The California State Senate is currently considering a bill (SB520) that, if passed, would force state universities to teach lower division classes as MOOCs.

Conclusion The field of higher education will see massive and constant change in the near future, and MOOCs will continue to play a major role in its rapid evolution. How will YOU play a part in the revolution of learning? Read more: http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/moocs

SOURCES Distance Learning Von V. Pittman, "Correspondence Study in the American University: A Second Historiographical Perspective, in Michael Grahame Moore, William G. Anderson, eds. Handbook of Distance Education pp 21-36 (Correspondence Courses) Levering Tyson, "Ten Years of Educational Broadcasting," School and Society (1936) 44:225-31 (Radio) Enter MOOCs http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/10/02/the-cck08-mooc-connectivism-course-14-way/ (coining MOOC) http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7078.pdf (first MOOC course) MOOC Companies https://www.edx.org/about (edx why founded) http://blog.coursera.org/post/40080531667/signaturetrack (Coursera Signature Track) http://chronicle.com/article/a-first-for-udacity-transfer/134162/ (Udacity Revenue) http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massive-open-online-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.html?smid=pl-share (Udacity Profit Sharing) http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/21/coursera-and-edx-add-universities-and-hope-expand-global-reach (Twice As Many Moocs) What are People Saying? http://chronicle.com/article/the-professors-behind-the-mooc/137905 (Professors - Credit) http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/affirmative-action-innovation-and-financial-future-survey-presidents (Presidents) What s Happening Today? http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/april/edx-collaborate-platform-030313.html (Universities - edx) http://chronicle.com/article/a-bold-move-toward-moocs-sends/137903/ (SB 520)

Thank you! http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/registrar/moocs POWERED BY April, 2013