MOOCs: ontwrichting of verrijking? Utrecht, Nuffic Jaarcongres 11 Maart2014
Going pan-european with OpenupEd MOOCs MOOCs: predominantly US where it all started as of 2011 (or in Canada in 2009, or ) and expanded massively (Coursera, Udacity, edx) some EU universities have joint US initiatives new launches in UK, Australia, Germany, Spain TIME for a European initiative! nice umbrella: the EC launch Opening up Education that s why OpenupEd is our name first pan-european MOOCs initiative launched April 25 2014, joint press release EADTU & EC
MOOC: number of courses (10-11-2013) Coursera (VS): edx (VS): Udacity (VS): Open2Study (AU): MiriadaX (ES): Futurelearn (GB): Universite Numerique (Fr): Iversity (D): 537 courses 91 courses 28 courses 32 courses 90 courses 29 courses 24 courses 25 courses (2 with ECTS opp.) OpenupEd (EU) 174 courses (>100 ECTS opp.) MOOCs run on own institutional platform (11 partners)
Main drivers for online and open education 1. The main driver on open education on a national or global level is access to higher education for all. Today there are 165 million people enrolled in tertiary education. Projections suggest that the world's higher education system must accommodate additional 98 million more students by 2025. Sir John Daniel (former President of the Commonwealth of Learning) calculated that this would require more than four major campus universities for 30,000 students to open every week for the next 15 years. Or 4000 MOOCs providing 10.000 certificates each run
Main drivers for open education 2. Extremely relevant and beneficial for Developing Countries and Emerging Economies with (1) shortage of qualified teachers; (2) lack of high-quality learning materials and (3) evident need to really expand access to (formal) education. 3. Reduce costs of HE at a country level For example in the USA where the high cost of textbook has reduced citizens access to higher education, but recent efforts on open textbooks reduced those costs drastically (over 50%).
Main drivers for open education 4. At an institutional level it is (was) mainly marketing, offering something for free to attract more students (Early) examples of OER initiatives are based on a model as Content for free, Teaching & Credentialing for a fee. MOOCs now offer courses for free 5. By now open education has become competition and demand driven Competing with low-cost HE to be the best, attract best students Next to policy-driven implementation driven (changing business) and identity driven (openness). OUs need to be part.
Disruptive innovation (Christensen)
Disruptive? Disruptive innovation is often made possible due to the constant reduction* in ICT costs: Bandwidth Storage Processing The difference between ICT costs for 100 students or 100,000 students is negligible The ONLY variable costs minimized are ICT costs * Moore s law
Free Free online courses are creating a lot of excitement, although: Free OER has been around for a long time Online courses have been around for a long time Their pedagogies and technologies are usually not innovative Free disrupts industries. (e.g. music, journalism, travel) Is HE the next industry? Are MOOCs disruptive?
Business models Customer value proposition Infrastructure Resources Processes Financial (yes, there is a reason why this one is last)
Business models around free Free as a method to compete with a paid product of a competitor Free product creates monetizable activity Freemium Free high quality product, but limited Limitations are raised by paying customers Paying customers cover fixed and variable costs Free as a tool to promote reputation
Business models around open + online..
Source: http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/gradechange.pdf
HE business models around MOOCs (cacm, Dellarocas & Van Alstyne, 2013) First and foremost, the dissemination of knowledge as a social role of universities Governmental funding for developing and running MOOCs for other institutions Payment for complementary services: certification of identity, skills acquisition, etc. Payment by potential employers for access to participant data Advertising Payment by other universities for the MOOCs
Opening up Education Open Education, for example defined as to remove all unnecessary barriers to learning while aiming to provide students with a reasonable chance of success in higher education. In addition we should encompass a diversity of institutional approaches in Open Education / opening up education. Not all barriers and restrictions are for every institution the same and it should be accepted that openness can never be totally complete Is not absolute and can change over time.
MOOCs for Opening up Education for all (that have the potential) Openness in education needs to embrace all dimensions of openness and provide flexibility to all learners in whatever educational context. MOOCs should be designed such that all unnecessary barriers to learning are removed, while aiming to provide students with a reasonable chance of success in an education.
OpenupEd framework of 8 features 1. Openness to learners (to learners needs) 2. Spectrum of diversity (in language, culture, in (open) learning environments) 3. Digital openness 4. Learner centered approach 5. Independent learning 6. Media-supported interaction 7. Recognition options 8. Quality focus OpenupEd (MOOC quality) label available Not meant to be a strict order but rather to give general guidance
Quality points checking Provenance Reputation Brand MOOC creation use peer review user recommendation
Quality and learners What are MOOCs actually aiming at? Can the quality of MOOCs be assessed in the same way as any defined university course with traditional degree awarding processes? Or do we have to take into account a different type of objective with MOOC learners? Are the learners mostly interested in only small sequences of learning, tailored to their own individual purpose, and then sign off and move to other MOOCs because their own learning objective was fulfilled? Source: EFQUEL, http://mooc.efquel.org/
Why bother with quality? Students know what they are committing to Employers recognition of content and skills Authors personal reputation, 'glow' of success Institutions brand reputation Funders philanthropic, venture caps, governments Quality agencies on behalf of above And to secure the reasons why you are offering a MOOC
Why bother with quality? Reported completion may be very low (1-10%) Does that matter? With very large starting numbers, there are still many learners completing Maybe learners achieve personal goals even if they don t complete Can MOOCs encourage access to HE if >90% have an experience which is a failure?
OpenupEd Quality label for MOOCs Partners will be HEIs meet national QA & accreditation Internal QA process for MOOC approval OpenupEd MOOC quality label gained initially self-assessment & review institutional and course level (first 2 courses) Label to be renewed periodically additional MOOCs reviewed at course level only HEI evaluates and monitors its MOOCs
Thank you!!! Fred.Mulder@ou.nl Darco.Jansen@eadtu.eu