Leader: Enter the disruptive dragon

By John Gill. Moocs promise to strike at the heart of traditional higher education delivery, but it needn't mean the chop for universities
According to the Chinese zodiac, 2012 was the year of the dragon; according to The New York Times, it was the year of the Mooc. On balance, the latter seems the more accurate.
But is the massive open online course a fire-breathing beast that, having convinced higher education fortune-tellers of its potential, is about to rock, or wreck, your world?
The answer, this time, may be yes. At the very least, Moocs represent a hugely significant technological shift in higher education.
For the uninitiated, and there cannot be many left, a growing number of top universities - led as so often by the US elite - are now offering courses for free via online platforms such as Coursera, often to tens of thousands of students at a time.
The Mooc model is far from perfect. The issues to be worked through include how (and whether) to apply credit to courses, how best to support students and whether Moocs will ever be effective across all disciplines. Read more...