By Matthew W. Painter, special to the Hays Free Press.
The “MOOC” acronym (pronounced like a cow would say it) may not be immediately recognizable but the concept of massive open online courses created quite a stir within the higher education industry. Big names are involved—MIT, Harvard, Stanford and others—but the programs these schools are implementing impact Hays County and the world.
MOOCs stem from a simple question: Why are thousands of professors across the country teaching the same material? Why not allow the best professors a massive audience by using online technology?
Online courses have historically been the digital version of a face-to-face class. The fee structures are typically the same while the benefit of the online version is convenience for the student. It might be thought of as the same educational meal, just packaged “eat in” or “to go.”
MOOCs differ from traditional online courses in two major areas. First, the courses are designed specifically for the online environment. Professors are selected not only for their subject-matter authority but also for their ability to teach in an online setting, which can be a very different skillset compared to teaching in a physical classroom. Second, professors structure the course as they see fit, sometimes allowing students to self-pace the material and sometimes having a set class time.
MOOCs use their university affiliation and name recognition to attract massive audiences—often hundreds of thousands of students per course—and keep costs very low. A MOOC offered through edX at MIT, for example, is free. The only cost is $25-$100 for a required identity verification service.
The New York Times referred to 2012 as “The Year of the MOOC” and the buzz about big-name universities offering massive online courses continues to grow. So if an ivy-league education can be had for a nominal cost, are local institutions in danger from this seemingly boundary-less competition?
Some critics of MOOCs say that online, no matter how you slice it, is still online. The utilization of chat rooms, message boards, and other technologies largely fails to replicate the interaction between students and professors that takes place in a physical classroom. Students seeking collaborative and social learning environments may not enjoy the one-way flow of information that makes up a MOOC lecture.
MOOC administrators grapple with the best way to present courses and integrate them. Traditional programs allow instructors to build on learning from a previous course, while MOOCs allow students to pick and choose – often without having taken the prerequisite class. MOOCs differ greatly from the traditional integrative model, focusing instead on the content of individual courses rather than how that course fits into a larger program.
The lack of a cohesive framework begs the larger question of value. Is a free course—even from Harvard—a classic example of getting what you pay for?
The value to a student seeking an undergraduate or graduate degree may be low because a completed MOOC does not count toward a future degree, though the American Council on Education said in a recent story in the Economist that it will evaluate MOOCs for credit consideration.
On the other hand, a professional seeking additional instruction in one focused area may benefit greatly from a MOOC in that particular field.
Additionally, an innovative company is free to utilize course content for training or employee development. The value of these courses is likely to be high, therefore, for students seeking compartmentalized instruction and low for those seeing a cohesive education.
Completion rates are another area in which the overall effectiveness of MOOCs is called into question. According to a 2013 Inside Higher Education article by Chris Parr, a survey of 29 MOOCs found a student completion rate of less than seven percent. This seems to indicate that the ease of enrollment and low- or no-cost model fails to offer a compelling incentive for most students to stick around for the final exam.
The longevity of MOOCs may be questionable but for many students, the concept is exciting. Such courses offer the opportunity to receive world-class instruction for nothing (or next to nothing), regardless if you reside in Hays County or London or Afghanistan. The buzz about MOOCs may subside but this innovative—and disruptive—use of technology provides us a glimpse towards future aspects of higher education.
Matthew Painter is a senior lecturer in the Department of Management and the director of the McCoy MBA program at Texas State University. The university does not offer MOOCs, but the possibility exists in the future.
MIT MOOCs by the numbers
The massive online open courses at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) turned 10 last week. Here’s a look at the university’s MOOCs:
Number of MOOCs in 2003 500
Number of MOOCs today 2,180
Web visits in 2012 23 million
Web visits expected by Dec. 2013 27 million
Number of individuals that have accessed the site 170 million
iTunes lecture video downloads 43.5 million
YouTube lecture video views 48.6 million
