Moocs: if we're not careful so-called 'open' courses will close minds

By Peter Scott. Massive open online courses, or Moocs, will probably turn out to be little more than an edu-tainment 'bubble', says Peter Scott. I have tried, really hard, not to write about Moocs. But I can't keep it up forever, and what better time than the silly season to write about this phenomenon, which may transform higher education, or just turn out to be another damp squib.
Moocs, for anyone who has switched off from the chattering of the policy/management class, are massive open online courses. The idea is that courses are uploaded to the "cloud" where they are available to everyone. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is credited with being first, and now some big global media companies have piled in. The catch, of course, is that credentials – which is higher education's core business – will remain as tightly rationed as ever. More...