MOOCs and Anti-MOOCs

By Audrey Watters. Obligatory MOOC News
Coursera, textbook publishers, and Chegg are teaming up to give students access to digital course materials for some Coursera classes. Those materials will be DRM’d, content can’t be copied, pasted, or printed, and access will go away at the end of the course. Viva la ed-tech revolution.
The union representing professors at San Jose State University (which has worked closely with both edX and Udacity) penned a letter regarding its administration’s MOOC embrace. The full letter is available on The Chronicle. Among the choice quotes: “While Anant Agarwal of edX and Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom describe a stereotype of classroom teaching based on some hackneyed Hollywood script of a teacher writing on the blackboard while his students sleep in boredom…”
San Francisco State University’s Academic Senate also wrote a letter (PDF) stating their opposition to State Senator Darrel Steinberg’s SB 520 bill that would require credits be granted by online providers for “closed” classes. “First [and let me interject and editorialize here… FIRST] there is no access crisis at San Francisco State University.”
The administration at American University have issued a “moratorium on MOOCs,” according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. “American is purposely avoiding experimentation before it decides exactly how it wants to relate to the new breed of online courses. ‘I need a policy before we jump into something,’ said Scott A. Bass, the provost, in an interview.”
The University of Pennsylvania is working on language for policy that would restrict what faculty could do vis-a-vis online freelance teaching work (aka non-sanctioned MOOCs, I guess). More details via Inside Higher Ed. Read more...