Benutzer:Birkenkrahe/HWR-MBA-BIS-INTM/MOOC

The concept and perspectives of development of Massive Open Online Courses

Introduction to MOOC

A massive open online course (MOOC) is a model for delivering learning content online to any person who wants to take a course, with no limit on attendance. Basically anyone with an Internet connection can attend for free. Each student can learn at their own pace and attend when they have the time. By providing free access to anyone with an Internet connection, MOOCs facilitate the dissemination of knowledge to unprecedented numbers of people. These classes are aimed at expanding a university’s reach from thousands of tuition-paying students who live in town, to millions of students around the world.

Open online courses are not new; however, the recent version of MOOCs is a force to reckon with because it is offered by the best universities in the world, free of charge. For example, these include EDx initiated by Harvard and MIT, and Coursera (started by a couple of Stanford professors) which offers courses taught by award-winning faculty from University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Princeton University, and Stanford University.

These MOOCs are not simply recorded lectures; rather, they offer instructor interaction with students, student-to-student communication, virtual laboratories, and e-text books. Further, like traditional courses, they require student registration, have a defined start and end date (typically spread over many weeks), require the completion of assignments, have grading systems, and provide a certificate of completion.

A MOOC throws open the doors of a course and invites anyone to enter, resulting in a new learning dynamic. As Faculty can’t possibly respond to students individually, so the course design — how material is presented and the interactivity — counts for a lot. As do fellow students. Classmates may lean on one another in study groups organized in their towns, in online forums or, the prickly part, for grading work. Although this dynamic will make some students uneasy and will force instructors to rethink at least some of the elements of their courses, the MOOC can potentially alter the relationship between learner and instructor and between academe and the wider community. Professors are learning a great deal from MOOCs. Armed with massive amounts of data about the “classroom” performance of students, they can adjust lectures, course material, and examinations to improve comprehension, both online and on campus. Those enrolling in a MOOC are likely to discover learning at its most open on a platform that invites the world not only to see and hear but also to participate and collaborate.

Stanford mathematician Keith Devlin is teaching a MOOC this semester and blogging about the experience: “After just one week of my course, I’ve seen a lot of learning going on, but it wasn’t in the lectures. Even if I’d been able to see each student watching the lecture, I would not have seen much learning going on, if any. Rather, the learning I saw was on the discussion forums, primarily the ones focused on the assignments I gave out after each lecture. As I explained to the students, the course assignments and the associated forum discussions are the heart of the course.”

Students in a MOOC show a very different profile from the traditional university one. Not just in age and backgrounds, but also in their reasons for enrolling in a MOOC. For example, many people enroll in a MOOC with no intention of completing the course. They simply want to get a sense of the topic or subject. There is also another group that wants to complete the course, and come in prepared to work very hard to do so. They want the course to be as close as possible to a regular university course not a watered down version. (Blog: MOOCtalk.) Successful MOOC participants are self-motivated and hold themselves accountable for watching lectures, completing coursework, and fulfilling all requirements.

But they are also rare: the completion rate for the first MOOC, a course on artificial intelligence offered by Stanford in 2011, was 13 percent. One-on-one teaching/learning, the kind of learning experience that in the traditional academy is reserved only for doctoral students. For inescapable personnel reasons it is not possible to provide one-on-one learning experiences for undergraduates or masters students at a traditional university. But surely, isn’t it even more problematic in an online course with tens of thousands of students? Strange though it may seem, the answer is no. MOOC is, in many ways, like radio or TV — and not just because MOOCs make use of video-recorded lectures. Of far more educational significance, though TV and radio are both referred to as “mass media,” they are in fact highly individual. The newsreader on radio or TV is not addressing a large audience; she or he is talking to millions of single individuals. The secret to being good on the radio or TV is to forget the millions and think of just one (generic) person. After all, the listener or viewer is not in a room with millions of other people; in fact, if the broadcast is successful, that listener or viewer is cognitively in a room with just the presenter. The really successful radio and TV newsreaders and presenters are the ones who can do that really well. They create that sense that they are talking just to You. And the same is true for a MOOC.

Benefits of MOOC

• You can participate at MOOC in any setting that has connectivity,
• MOOC can be organized in any language (taking into account the main language of your target audience),
• Organizer can use any online tools that are relevant to the target group or that are already being used by the participants,
• Participants can move beyond time zones and physical boundaries,
• It can be organized as quickly as you the participants are informed,
• Contextual content can be shared by everyone attending,
• More informal setting for a learning,
• Learning through the exchange of notes on the course’s study by participants,
• Interconnectivity across disciplines and corporate/institutional walls,
• Only the wish to learn (at high speed) matters and no degree requires to follow the course,
• Opportunity to get connected and build up a network of like-minded people with the same interests,
• MOOC develops self-organization and improves lifelong learning skills

Historical overview

Precursors

Long time before digital area distance education relied on mail service and has been practiced at least since Isaac Pitman, British inventor taught shorthand in Great Britain via correspondence in the 1840s. The University of London was the first university to offer distance learning degrees, establishing its External Program in 1858. This program is now known as the University of London International Programs and includes Postgraduate, Undergraduate and Diploma degrees created by colleges such as the London School of Economics. The idea of distance learning based on delivering education and instruction, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional setting such as a classroom.

The very rapid spread of radio in the United States in the 1930s led to proposals to use it for distance education. By 1938, at least 200 city school systems, 25 state boards of education, and many colleges and universities broadcast educational programs for the public schools in the USA.

The First Open University was established in 1969 and the first students enrolled in January 1971. The OU provides university education to those wishing to pursue higher education on a part-time and distance learning basis. Most of students have a possibility to study off-campus, but they must be present at the exams at local examinations centres. Nowadays Open University Business Schools in the UK can provide also MBA programs.

An expansion of e-learning was possible due to rapid development of information technology. E-learning also known as computer-based learning offered learning scenarios, worksheets and interactive exercises. This concept became more popular with the development of internet and communication technologies. Shortly before MOOC emerged, Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched in 2001 MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW). These are course lessons created at universities and published gratis via the Internet.

From connectivism to MOOC

The concept of connectivism was introduced for the fist time in 2005. This theory of learning is based on the premise that knowledge exists in the world rather than in the head of an individual. According to this perspective knowledge emerges within the system which is accessed through people participation in learning activities. One of core idea of connectivism is its central metaphor of a network with nodes and connections. In this metaphor a node is anything that can be connected to another node such as an information, data or images. In other terms, connectivism sees learning as the process of creating connections and elaborating a network. Connectivism was inspired by other pedagogic concepts like behaviorism, cognitivism or constructivism combined with significant support of communication technologies.

In 2008, Siemens and Downes delivered an online course called "Connectivism and Connective Knowledge". It covered Connectivism as content while attempting to implement some of their ideas. The course was free to anyone who wished to participate, and over 2000 people worldwide enrolled. The course content was available through web and learners could participate with their choice of tools (Moodle, blogs, Second Life and synchronous online meeting such as Skype). The course was repeated in 2009 and in 2011. This method of learning was further developed by Coursera and edX under name Massive Open Online Courses.

Business model, technology and design

Technology

Technology-wise the requirements for MOOC have been fulfilled for some time now. All that is basically needed is a decent bandwidth and high end video equipment to record and send live lectures. Another thing is the network bandwidth on the receiver side, but even these preconditions have been met years ago, too.

So the basic xMOOC containing a video broadcast of a lecture requires very little technical effort. Some of the classic xMOOC also add examinations to fulfil the requirements of an acknowledged participation. But this is mostly covered by classic approaches requiring the physical attendance of the examinee, online tests or a combination of both. Those examinations may take their time to be prepared, but still this more a didactic problem then a question of available technology.

More challenging are cMOOCs based on connectivism. This requires several tools for the participants to interact with each other. In its basic form this can be forums, wikis, chats, video conferences and other forms of shared interaction on the chosen topic. Sometimes special virtual realities are used to facilitate the interaction between the participants. Some of the more advanced projects actually occupy an IT team which takes care of adapting the tools to the requirements of interacting and learning.

Most of the classic educational institutes combine the one-sided lecture with interactive coaching. This means technology-wise a video setup and the additional coaching facilities are required. But still, the technology certainly facilitates MOOCs, but the driving force has to be found elsewhere.

Didactic concepts

As already mentioned before, there are different educational concepts behind MOOCs. The most obvious one is an evolution from classic lecture to a massive and remote audience through on-line streaming. Even the additional online learning materials and online coaching options are nothing new. As described early classic correspondence courses and remote universities have been around for decades with similar concepts. A totally different view is taken with the cMOOC concept. Often there is not even distinguished between the type of participants by classic educational roles like teacher and student. In practice just some moderation is required, which can be recruited from either parties. Some MOOCs even operate driven from other sources than classic educational institutes. This subculture scene to classic education is comparable to the relation between the blog scene and classic journalism.

Even though not all alternative concepts proved successful so far, there is much to be learned from their different didactic concepts. “The good, living teacher probes the way students think and offers counter examples that open pathways. With the benefit of a perfect memory of student's past responses, a computer lesson should also be able to identify some of these patterns and offer up novel challenges at the right time.“ In eLearing with a massive audience this proves to be a challenge .

A very important basic concept of the collaboration in MOOC is connectivism. Here are the most important principles of connectivismStephen Downes, 2007, http://halfanhour.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/what-connectivism-is.html:

• Learning is a process of connecting nodes and information sources,
• Learning is more critical than knowing,
• Perceiving connections between fields, ideas and concepts is a core skill,
• The capacity to know: Knowing where to find information is more important than knowing information,
• Learning and knowledge profits from a diversity of opinions,
• Encouragement of integration of cognition and emotions in meaning-making,
• Learning may reside in non-human appliances. Learning can rest in a community, a network, or a database,
• Learning has an end goal - namely the increased ability to do something.

For example the “flipped classroom” strategy is a didactic concept which takes up an alternative perspective. Knowledge gained from the interaction of the students not only might broaden the horizon of the topic but is normally also remembered more easily than knowledge gained from the passive role of the listener. In such concepts the distinction of the lecture (passive learning), exercise, practice and examination is reversed.

Even grading in MOOCs can be different caused by the sheer amount of participants: “Assignments that can't be scored by an automated grader are pushing MOOC providers to get creative. Coursera for example uses peer grading: five people grade your assignment; in turn, you grade five assignments.“

But some doubt remains, that MOOC can deliver the required interaction: „At most colleges and universities, the traditional campus experience only provides a sufficient return on investment to students if it delivers what can’t be delivered online — an inverted classroom. It will become the norm for students to enrol in a MOOC, complete lessons online first, and then engage in collaborative problem-solving exercises in classes on campus.“

Other MOOCs offers hope: „Self-directed, project-based learning is what the future needs to hold if it has a chance. In essence, it is application over theory. Yet, education ‘without the weight’ is exactly what many players in the traditional educational system are selling.“

Business model

Based on the different businesses involved and different didactic concepts and approaches there are also several differences between the business goals. Whereas some approach the higher goal of widespread learning for all, others seek to gain profit from the concept or at least complement already profitable or established educational concepts with other learning forms.

For example some of the German tax-financed universities experiment with MOOC concepts to supplement their education. Another example are players, not yet known for educational courses: “The British Library’s addition to (... Futurelearn) is interesting, being as (..) it’s not a traditional higher education institution. This underlines how MOOCs’ campus-less, remotely delivered education model broadens the pool of potential education providers, as well as widening access for students.“

More challenging is the goal to actually gain profit from the MOOC. There are several concepts, but nothing has yet been established as a totally successful solution. “MOOC providers are still figuring out how to keep basic course access free while generating revenue.” (4) Coursera 'says „it takes about $30,000 to develop one online course“ (...) with their future concepts they „would get a 7 to 15 percent return of gross revenue“ (...) „but Coursera's courses still would be free“.

Here are some examples of concepts on gaining profits on MOOCs:

• Coursera: Pilot for Job-Placement with recruiters accessing class performance
• Udacity's: job portal with recruits paying for successful matches. Another business concept they use is sponsoring from companies like Google or Autodesk.
• Udacity and edX: fee-based exams. Udacity charges $89, edX's planned under $100. Coursera may add similar options. But as only a fracture of MOOC students actually takes the examines, there is just a small profit to be gained. “With completion rates for most MOOCs usually falling below 10%, the earning potential is limited“, even when several tenth of thousands of students originally take part in the course .

Other possible concepts evaluated to make MOOCs more profitable are:

• paid tuition for courses teaching skills highly demanded,
• paid tuition for students who wish to obtain credit points,
• payment for additional features (like individual coaching),
• moderate fees for high-profile lecturers.

Most of the offers today try the search for a business model that leaves the courses free for all participants – but non of the business concepts has yet offered a completely satisfying solution.

Interaction of business and education

As we have seen there are very different approaches. Some companies offering MOOCs have been founded with venture capital and are expected to gain profit from the MOOC concepts in the future. Naturally these concepts have to focus on the employability of the (mostly younger) participants to guarantee good financial results and attractive sponsoring options.

Others focus stronger on the open accessibility of first-class knowledge for everybody – and the concept of live-long learning for target groups, which can not been reached in a traditional university. Especially universities and other knowledge sources broaden their portfolio of educational offers in this way.

A third categories of MOOCs seldom seeks to earn money, but focuses on different concepts to gain knowledge. Based for example on Dewey’s the concept of hands-on learning and experiential education was introduced , and the the newer concept of problem-based learning facilitated.

INSERT GRAPHIC (see print)

graphic’s source: Summarizing EdTech in One Slide: Market, Open and Dewey, by By Justin Reich on April 30, 2012, on http://blogs.edweek.org

Criticism and challenges

As already mentioned, the idea of MOOC emerged from the concept of social learning theory combined with the usage of all various web communication channels (Twitter, Moodle, Blogs, Facebook or Wiki). This new theory of learning defined as connectivism has not received wide acceptance due to several reasons.

Excessive diversity of educational background

MOOC is opened for all participants that wish to join. Everybody can enrol and complete the course. It means that in principle his level of knowledge of a subject is not assessed at the entry or examined in the end of the course. The classmates also often lack a common knowledge base and educational background, which is an important factor in classical education. The openness of MOOCs also leads to another criticism - the dropout rate for online courses is exceptionally high -- some say 75% of those who enroll do not complete. Given the lack of admissions and prerequisite rules, this is understandable. Many people may start and quit when they realize that the course is difficult, or that it requires more time than they have“

Problems of reliable evaluation

Some of the programmes of edX can require homeworks and final exams, but as a matter of fact this learning cannot be scaled up that much. Grading is imperfect, especially for non-technical subjects. The math tasks can be evaluated for example by software provided to the students, but its much more complex to evaluate thousands of assignments philosophy, literature or political science. Cheating is a reality- the participants in a course sometimes can submit identical homework.

Need of interaction

The classical online courses can be successful if three aspects are successfully combined: quality of material covered, engagement of the teacher and interaction among students. The first doesn’t seem to be an issue, especially if the professors come from elite campuses, and so far most MOOCs are successful in technical subjects like computer science and math, with straightforward content. But providing instructor connection and feedback, including student interactions, is trickier . Therefore, all participants are invited to create their own materials and share them with other participants. It requires not only a minimum digital literacy (usage of twitter, skype etc) but also personal involvement and additional time allocation. The participants must understand how to choose a relevant content and present it in structured understandable way for all. Otherwise the exchanged materials are chaotic and therefore useless.

Value of MOOCs certificates

The MOOC has an open participative structure where learning goals are not well defined or assessed. Actually every participant can define its own learning goals and evaluate himself at the end of the course. Therefore, MOOCs can be considered as a good supplement of traditional teaching process. For sure MOOCs can stimulate intellectual curiosity, create connections between students and build the network, but MOOCs certification (if provided) has no the same value as awards provided by traditional universities. Some of the most prestigious universities created their own MOOC platforms. In spite of that, the number of universities that accept the credits obtained through MOOC is very low.

Doubts about attractiveness of the business model

Coursera or Udacity are private profit-oriented companies but their sources of revenues are much reduced. On the other hand costs that are incurred for creation and maintenance of the platform are relatively high. In principle the courses are free of charge for the participants. Only the students who wish to obtain so called Signature Track (which is some kind of certification) have to pay a fee. In order to improve the business model, the companies must develop new sources of revenues.

Fostering autonomous and self-regulated learners

At the core of the MOOCs there is a power question: what can learners do for themselves with digital tools and networks? MOOCs foster not only a particular type of knowledge in a particular area of inquiry. They also foster a self-regulated, motivated, disciplined and autonomous learner. When an instructor does for learners what learners should do for themselves, the learning experience is incomplete. Developing capacity for learning and the mindsets needed to be successful learners is a central challenge of all MOOCs.

Future perspectives

“In the 21st century, somebody or something has changed the rules about how our world works... At this point in history, for most people on the globe the pace, scale and interconnectedness of change exceed our ability to learn. Nowadays what worked or happened yesterday is no longer a good predictors of what will work or happen tomorrow. First we must realise this challenge is universal and all encompassing and affects the entire the man-made and business environment. Secondly we need to understand how to respond, leading and innovating in a world which our systems, enterprises, education organisations and institutions were not designed for.”

Online classes of hundreds of thousands of students worldwide (MOOCS), disruptive innovation, tuition protests, for-profit universities, the “business model” of an university, student loan default – we live in times when the future of universities is discussed throughout the world. While these programs have already shown success at reaching large numbers of students, it is not entirely clear how MOOCs will impact existing systems of higher education.

Today we have to learn how to deal with a fast-paced environment. However, the pace of learning in traditional educational system is much slower than the pace with what the world changes. A lot of that we learned about live and work few decades ago no longer make any sense, because the world changes much faster and is getting more and more complex. But we haven't sped up our rate of learning. The pace of changes has outstripped our ability to learn. As human knowledge grows, the universities need to become more efficient in transmitting that knowledge to students. At the same time, technology nowadays allows people to collect, find, filter and distribute information far more rapidly than ever before. It is now possible to move large volumes of information quickly, and institutionalize what has always been an informal process. So there is no wonder that there is a growing need for MOOC and tremendous numbers of students enrolling for these classes does signal that changes are happening.

In the ongoing analysis of the disruptive potential of MOOCs, it is easy to forget that the actual concept is just a few years old. Furthermore, the definition of the concept itself has undergone a significant change in the past year. The two current branches of MOOCs are early prototypes. The potential of MOOCs will be based on further developing their techniques. The examples that attempt to tackle the four barriers of revenue, credentials, course completion rates, and student authentication will likely determine the future generation of MOOCs.

New opportunities & impact on Global scale

There is no question that this is a great opportunity for the autodidact. The poor farm kid in Nebraska, the retired grandmother, a young girl in India will all have access to ideas that were beyond their grasp before. This opening of classrooms is part of the inevitable movement toward greater access of information. There are other clear benefits of these programs. They also offer high school students the opportunity to pre-shop for college majors. By providing free access to anyone with an Internet connection, MOOCs facilitate the dissemination of knowledge to unprecedented numbers of people. Making the knowledge freely available could transform the possibilities of educational uplift, scientific discovery, and public engagement with academic work. The MOOC leader Coursera's own mission is to "empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in." There is a possibility to reach millions who currently have no access to any university at all.

Impact on quality

For the top-ranked schools, these free MOOCs taught by master teachers will set new standards of quality, be it course content or delivery. MBA students will have access to these free MOOCs and they will become the basis of comparison to the courses they are enrolled in. Student expectations will likely rise and faculty will be forced to respond to these new benchmarks of excellence. This will lead to improvements in the quality and currency of course content, as well as teaching efficacy. In fact, initial data from Coursera indicate that the reason most students enroll in MOOCs is because their universities do not offer the courses in question. Overall, the arrival of MOOC programs from globally top-ranked schools can be a catalyst that produces broad positive changes in education, including higher quality in course content, course currency, course delivery, and possibly an expanded selection of courses. Many will question the quality of MOOC's, but that's the great thing about empiricism—courses can be evaluated and knowledge assessed.

Additional services & Business Models

Some organizations will develop businesses devoted exclusively to credible, secure assessments of what MOOC students have learned. Security and integrity will always be issues for online learning (although I don't remember anyone checking my ID when I took my econ final, or any final for that matter). But these are solvable problems. Thrun's MOOC company, Udacity, is forming a partnership with the textbook giant Pearson's VUE testing-center service for exactly this reason. Other companies will sell services designed specifically to support learning online. This, too, is already happening. The tech company Piazza, for example, provides online spaces for instructors and students to ask and answer questions about course concepts and assignments, for traditional and online classes. Piazza's offices are in Palo Alto, just up the street from Stanford. That's not a coincidence; as new modes of online higher education develop, the ecosystem of start-up capital and innovation in Silicon Valley will organize around them.

Impact on Costs & Fees

All of this points toward a world where the economics of higher education are broken down and restructured around marginal cost. The cost of serving the 100,000th student who enrolls in a MOOC is essentially very low, which is why the price is zero, too. Open-source textbooks and other free online resources will drive the prices of supporting materials toward the zero line as well. The cost of administering an exam to the 100,000th student in a secure testing center, by contrast, isn't zero, so students will end up paying for that. One-on-one access to an expert or teaching assistant also costs money, so students who need those services will pay for them as well. Meanwhile, the dominant higher-education pricing model, in which different students pay a single price for a huge package of services they may or may not need, will come under increasing stress. Colleges of all kinds will need to re-examine exactly what value they provide to students, what it costs, and what price the market will bear.

Impact on Credits

Some accredited colleges will start accepting MOOC certificates as transfer credit. They'll see it as a tool for marketing and building enrolment. This is already starting to happen. The non-profit Saylor Foundation recently struck a deal whereby students completing its free online courses can, for a small fee, take exams to earn credit at Excelsior College, a regionally accredited non-profit online institution. Pressure to accept MOOC credits will build and gradually move up the higher-education food chain. Public officials eager to offer credible low-cost options to parents and students fed up with rising college prices will pile on.

Boiling it down to its essential, a degree is nothing more than the entrance certificate to a well-paid job. Yes, there are other (more important) factors to it, but for the vast majority of students and parents who invest a degree program, it’s just that. If we take a look at the tech sector (since we can assume that most well-paid jobs will be somewhat related to creating or using technology), we see that a degree is not the only reason to hire someone anymore. One could say that it is even ranked pretty low on the list of reasons. Skills and a way to prove them are key for tech companies looking to hire talent. Aside from where you went to college, companies look for whether or not you can show them that you are a good programmer or social media manager. They want to know your social reputation, your network, your profile, etc. Of course, there are still jobs that require classic degree programs. Still, technology jobs that take alternative education into consideration might bring back a healthy middle class.

Summary

Massive Open Online Courses became very popular in the recent years. Thousands of students across the world received an unique opportunity to access to the courses offered by the most prestigious universities without moving from their homes. Although an idea of a distance learning is not new, the new method supported by recently developed communication technologies make a real difference to the traditional methods of distance learning. Free access to the education for everyone and multiple possibilities of exchanging the knowledge among other students open a new area in a history of education. The new theory of learning, although very popular among students, has still not received wide acceptance among traditional university bodies. Lack of admissions criteria, problems of reliable assessment and insufficient interaction can make some doubts about effectiveness of this methods of education. As a consequence for many potential employers or traditional universities MOOCs certificates can seem to have a little value. On the other hand MOOC appears to be an excellent supplement or support for education especially for autonomous self-disciplined learners who wants to develop their knowledge without necessarily looking for prestigious diplomas. MOOC have also a positive influence on education in general bringing an updated knowledge especially in areas where the progress is very fast. The MOOC as a business concept is not mature therefore at this stage it’s difficult to predict in which direction it can evolve. MOOC is a recent concept and for sure possesses a giant dreaming potential.

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