MOOC = innovative quality learning for all?

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.
MOOC = innovative quality learning for all?
Many innovative achievements of MOOCs are actually not so novel and certainly not unique selling points:
- Large numbers of learners being able to watch a MOOC? This is basically the same technology as watching TV programmes — live or recorded — on the internet.
- Being able to respond to exercises and quizzes? Being able to join a discussion or working group? To get peer support? There are rather common technologies used in online questionnaires, games, in social media and many online portals, and they have been for a long time part of online learning. It clearly depends on the development of software and eplatforms, which is of course very important and useful for further progress in interactive mass communication and collaboration, including in learning.
A key argument in favour of MOOCs is that they promise to provide high-quality learning opportunities to a very large number, or even unlimited number of learners for free or at low costs. The economic side of this argument, i.e. business models that would allow MOOCs to remain free of charge or at low cost for participants, have already been discussed above. However, longstanding experience has shown that quality and student success in online learning come at a price that is maybe even higher than for face-to-face education. The question therefore is whether MOOCs are actually able to undercut the costs of other online learning models, while offering comparable or even superior learning quality. Can MOOCs solve the problems and dysfunctions in mass education resulting from an unfavourable instructor-to-student ratio? Can MOOCs even reverse the pattern of one (instructor) to many students toward “many to one” or “many to many”? Some educationalists would see this change as necessary to revolutionise learning.
Educational scientists have pointed out that many MOOCs are just reproducing a model of traditional education provision that is already in crisis. They also challenge the claim that MOOCs provide flexible learning – apart from the fact that they can be followed on a more flexible time schedule – and point for example to the fact that Coursera MOOCs follow a very linear, fairly standardised narrative. Adaptive learning, i.e. learning material that adjusts automatically to the learning needs and abilities of learners, is making progress, driven by research, software developers and publishing companies, but still far away from allowing flexible learning phases. One may also argue of course that there are different types of MOOCs, such as a connectivist MOOC (c-MOOC). However, it seems that presently, it would not be possible to run a c-MOOC on one of the big provider platforms, as software tools would not allow for the type of interaction and collaboration among participants that characterise c-MOOCs. A question is whether this could be changed, given the fact that a purpose of c-MOOCs is that learners and groups of learners develop their own initiatives, which are unpredictable. The x-MOOC pattern, however, is a fairly linear approach with clearly defined (learning) outcomes. A c-MOOC might impede the automatic assessment approach that the big MOOC platforms currently offer, which requires rather prescriptive learning, in that all issues need to be broken down into to a dual response choice (right or wrong). It would also imply a different role of the instructor (more of a facilitator than the actual provider of knowledge), than the one in traditional teaching.
Another point made in favour of MOOCs is that they create large sets of data that may provide more robust analysis of learning styles, course programmes, etc. However, the point is also made that this is less about improving learning, and more about correcting the teaching materials, which could have been done also with proper preparation in the first instance, and some testing. This kind of assessment would also make more sense, if the students and their backgrounds are known – which is usually not the case in MOOCs. Download the full paper here.