Implications for learning and teaching

EUA has published its second Occasional Paper on the topic of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
Authored by Michael Gaebel, Director of the Higher Education Policy Unit at EUA, it also looks in detail at a number of issues related to the development of MOOCs that are directly relevant for universities.
The full paper can be downloaded here.
Implications for learning and teaching
Many of the arguments made in favour of or against MOOCs are actually more about economic aspects (cheaper or free of charge) and the motivations for institutions to have them (such as international outreach). The issues of funding and business models for MOOCs are already quite complicated; to assess at this stage what MOOCs actually mean for learning is even more challenging. This is partly because they are a relatively new development, their use is still in the experimental phase and not much research has been published, but also because in different institutional and system environments they may have a different impact.
Principal questions are:
- Are MOOCs a means for learning, or just an information source (fancy form of textbooks)?
- Can MOOCs replace, complement or supplement higher education provision? Are they, for example, a possibility to widen participation? If so, what are the conditions to be met in terms of learning support and assessment?
- Should MOOCs award credits?
- How would MOOCs, credit-bearing or not, change the role of higher education institutions? Download the full paper here.