‘MOOC’ stands for Massive Open Online Course, which is a form of distance learning embraced not only by traditional providers of distance learning (e.g. open universities) but also the elites that are highly visible in global rankings. The MOOCment originated from North Americas about five years ago and has rapidly spread around the world, with China, India and recently Europe, all pledging to MOOC along. They do this either by using established big-name American MOOC platforms (e.g. Coursera, edX) or constructing their own (e.g. iversity and FutureLearn in Europe; icourse in China).
MOOC enthusiasts see the movement as a revolutionary change in the world of learning. MOOC sceptics regard it as another technological hype that may soon fade away. The openness of MOOCs is also being called into question when the providers start to attach a price tag to the use of the platform, the licensed content or the certification of the learning results. Besides, some MOOCs are no longer ‘courses’, but complete degree programmes. Some MOOCs were intended for massive enrolments but have attracted only a few. With rapid developments in the MOOC world, the MOOC today may be completely different from the MOOC tomorrow and the MOOC in one country may be defined differently from one in another country, depending on the orientation of the providers and the target audiences.
Knowing that MOOCs have also caught the attention of European university leaders, national policymakers and those in EU institutions, the upcoming ACA European Policy Seminar – Making Sense of the MOOCs – seeks to unpack the concept of MOOCs, trace its developments in Europe and beyond, and to reveal the back office in the production of a MOOC with practical examples. We will also look at the geography of MOOCs and discuss whether and how MOOCs can possibly take root and blossom in Europe.
Producing MOOCs could be labour and capital intensive, although the contents are free for the learners and will probably remain so in order to continue attracting the attention of the mass. It is therefore necessary for institutional leaders to survey the changing MOOC environment, know what they are, how they could be organised and, more importantly, funded, before jumping onto the bandwagon.
As a usual practice in any ACA European Policy Seminar, we will bring together the most qualified speakers from a good mix of backgrounds to present a multidimensional picture of the subject. And we encourage open discussion, critical reflection, practical advice and friendly exchanges on this hotly debated topic.
The seminar, jointly organised with the European University Association (EUA), will be held on 10.10.2013 (Thu) in Brussels.
For this special event co-organised by ACA and EUA, we are pleased to extend the ACA members’ rate to all EUA members. More information about the fee rebate is available on the registration page.
38th in the series “European Policy Seminars” of the Academic Cooperation Association

By Marielk. In this guest entry, Jeremy K. Knox from University of Edinburgh examines the current open education resources (OER) and MOOC trends and some of the competing assumptions behind these developments. Furthermore, he highlights two important considerations this can have for educational research in the future. Jeremy K. Knox is currently working towards his doctoral degree at University of Edinburgh at the Moray House School of Education. His research interests are focused on critical posthumanism, and the relationship between current educational epistemologies and methodologies of educational research and digital culture. Check also his personal blog where he writes about technology, culture and learning. 
‘Open education’ has emerged as a loosely defined, but influential theme in higher education, shaping institutional strategies and prompting major international policy. Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have surfaced at the vanguard of a movement that appears to be establishing itself around a call for widespread institutional transformation, driven by new digital technologies and premised on the idea that higher education is in ‘crisis’.
However, while gaining considerable influence, the idea of ‘open education’ remains significantly under-theorised, and themes of economic benefit, teaching efficiency and learner emancipation are tending to dominate the discussion. While important, these interpretations overshadow considerations of the ways that OERs and MOOCs are involved in shaping the learning subject. In other words, how is the practicing of open education implicated in the formulation of particular ideas about what it is to be human, and what does this mean for the project of education? Read more...

By Marielk. This guest commentary takes the MOOCs trend as a comparison point in providing a commentary to current developments in higher education management in the US. The post is written by Professor Benjamin Ginsberg who is a David Bernstein Professor and Director of the Washington Center for the Study of American Government at the Johns Hopkins University. The entry was originally posted in the “Minding the Campus” Essay collection ans has been republished with permission. Minding the Campus is a site with its main aim to facilitate critical debate about American higher education.
As colleges begin using massive open online courses (MOOC) to reduce faculty costs, a Johns Hopkins University professor has announced plans for MOOA (massive open online administrations). Dr. Benjamin Ginsberg, author of The Fall of the Faculty, says that many colleges and universities face the same administrative issues every day. By having one experienced group of administrators make decisions for hundreds of campuses simultaneously, MOOA would help address these problems expeditiously and economically. Since MOOA would allow colleges to dispense with most of their own administrators, it would generate substantial cost savings in higher education. Read more...

By Jim Farmer. Nearly five years ago on October 27, 2008 Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn briefed participants at an American Enterprise Institute [AEI] meeting on “Disruptive Innovation in Education and Health Care.” Christensen and his work were well known by this Washington DC group. AEI described the meeting:

The ability of technology to “disrupt” long-established business practices–dramatically changing the landscape of industries by increasing access, cutting costs, and revolutionizing delivery–has been a subject discussed for decades and is the topic of Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen’s iconic volumes, The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution. Yet, as Christensen has observed, these radical, innovation-driven transformations have been largely absent in the education and health industries–perhaps the two most important arenas of everyday life.

At that time of the AEI briefing, Christensen and Horn’s book Disrupting Class had just been published. Subsequently, their work has been interpreted by some in the press as resolving the problems of students’ access to (in both a physical and economic sense), and success in, higher education. Christensen and Horn’s presentations and the discussion focused on “online learning”. It should be noted that data from MOOCs [Massive Open Online Courses] would not be available for three more years. Both presentations were far more nuanced than reported. Read more...

By Graham Attwell. I’ve avoided writing  much about MOOCs lately. Not because I am not interested or because I don’ think MOOCs are important, but mainly because I have been overwhelmed by the deluge of announcements and developments, blog posts, studies and lets face it, just hype. Some couple of weeks ago, I was invited to join a partnership for a tender application to the EU about MOOCs for web developers. So I have spent soem time looking rather more intensively at the literature and trying to make some sense of it. Here are a few observations. Firstly are MOOCs really disrupting universities. I guess the answer is yes and no. The great majority of MOOCs are free, and despite emergent business models around for example, selling e books or charging for accreditation, there remains question marks over the business models for MOOCs. Of course if the purpose and structure of universities is to provide free and open higher education then this wouldn’t be so important. But in an era where university funding in many countries is increasingly reliant on fees, this does become a major issue. Read more...