MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) provide free online courses to unlimited participants worldwide. While MOOCs aim to make education accessible to all, they have faced criticism over high dropout rates and concerns about pedagogy. Major MOOC platforms like Coursera, Udacity, and edX offer free certificates but have varying strengths and weaknesses in their course catalogs, formats, and communities. The future of MOOCs and their role in transforming higher education remains unclear.

1. MMVC15 4th annual 3-day
conference August 7-9

2. MOOCs : A revolution or a failure?

4. Some numbers
• 400+
• 2400+
• 16-18 million

5. What is a MOOC?

6. Two key features (Wikipedia, 2012):
1. Open access - anyone can participate in an
online course for free
2. Scalability - courses are designed to support
an indefinite number of participants

7. MOOCs and Open Education Timeline

8. Major MOOC Providers

16. Coursera Udacity edX
Pros
• Free unverified
certificates of
completion.
• Biggest catalog.
• The best of the
discussion forums
by comparison, but
nothing to brag
about.
• The greatest variety
of partners.
• Transcripts in many
different languages.
• iOS, Android and
Kindle Fire apps.
• Free “honor system”
certificates; fee-
based verified
certificates;
advanced certificates
for specialized work.
Pros
• Start anytime.
You don’t have
to wait for the
course you’re
interested in.
• Move at your
own pace. Caters
to self-directed
students.
• Lots of
programming and
computer science
classes.
• More focus on
current on
workplace skills.
• iOS and Android
apps.
Pros
• Free unverified
certificates.
• Big catalog from
interesting and
prestigious
university partners.
• Great for the
sciences and
medicine.
• Some foreign
language classes.
• Free “honor
system” certificates;
fee-based verified
certificates;
advanced
certificates for
specialized work.
Cons
• Too structured for
some learners. You
have to go at the
pace the professor
releases the videos
and assignments.
• More variability in
quality.
• You might have to
wait awhile until the
course you want is
made active.
Cons
• No more free
certificates.
• Smaller
community.
You’ll mostly be
working on your
own unless you
pay for the
premium version.
• Difficult if you
need deadlines to
keep you on
track.
• Very little in
foreign
languages.
Cons
• Frustrating
discussion forums.
• More variability in
quality.
• No apps.

17. Why are they so popular?
• Only need a reliable internet connection
• The majority of them are free
• Thousands of courses available
• Huge variety of subjects
• No real requirements for anyone to attend

18. Why are they so popular?
• credit toward a higher education award
• Future economic benefit
• Development of personal and professional
identity
• Enjoyment and fun
• experience or explore online education

19. Some scepticism
• delusion to believe the masses can be
educated in this way
• high dropout rates (Stein, 2013).
• supposed to be reaching poor and
uneducated people but not in reality (Mazoue,
2013)
• Risk only the IT literate individuals use them,
feeling of exclusion for the others (Yuan et al.,
2013)

20. Some scepticism
• concerns about the pedagogy and quality of
current MOOC courses (Yuan et al., 2013)

21. Towards a future of openness in
higher education

22. Are MOOCs a revolution or a failure?
(Image c/o Md saad andalib on Flickr.)

23. How to choose the right MOOC
• The course length and estimated weekly
workload
• Who the instructors are – there is often a
short biography of the course instructors
• The course syllabus
• The course format – will it be delivered by
video, audio, written text etc?
• Course Schedule

24. How to choose the right MOOC
• Scheduled MOOC versus Self-Paced MOOC
• Determine the amount of time you have to
devote to a course.
• Tangible portfolio
• Don’t assume there’s consistency between
classes.

25. Some statistics
• Today, there are nearly 600 publications that
reference MOOCs (Rutter, 2015)
• Teachers are already a big audience . A study
of 11 MOOCs offered by MIT last spring found
that nearly 28 percent of enrollees were
former or active teachers. (Pope, 2014)

26. Remember!