Universities Reshaping Education on the Web


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Submitted by Scott Streiner on Thu, 07/19/2012 - 10:15am.

The New York Times recently published an article outlining a very new and potentially game-changing way of learning online: Massive Open Online Courses or MOOCs.

This article does a great job of explaining exactly what MOOCs are, the potential benefits of them, the inherent downsides, and their future role in the college system.

Coursera,a year-old company founded by two Stanford University computer scientists, is leading the way for MOOCs and are expected to launch over 100 free MOOCs, drawing millions of student and adult learners globally!

While I think there are some very great things to come from these online courses, I don't think they are the answer to the increasing costs of college degrees. The downsides they mention in the article are really interesting, and are three-fold:

Cheating Issues
Grading Issues
Cannibalize enrollment at the very universities that produce them

For these reasons, and the fact that nothing beats hands-on experience and in person group collaboration, I don't think Coursera is going to revolutionize how students learn. What are your thoughts?

Posted in Public | Scott Streiner's blog | login or register to post comments »

Kate Meersschaert Says:
Thu, 07/19/2012 - 10:54am

Scott, thank you for this great new NYT's article - MOOCs have been a hot topic of debate here at the lab. Namely, do they really have value? If so, what subject areas are they a best-fit for? Here is a link to a liveblog I created during Coursera founder, Daphne Kollers, lecture at CU.

If you search "Udacity" or "MOOC" on the blog you should find a few of our POV pieces! Here is a recent post on Google's first foray in the world of MOOCs! Laura, Lu and I even led a recent D&R on our experiences with Udacity and thoughts on MOOCs!

Rebecca Hyams Says:
Thu, 07/19/2012 - 10:39am

I read this article a few days ago, and I agree with your conclusion. These MOOCs are great resources for informal learning, but without the ability to know who's really taking the course or doing the work, there really can't be credentialing on par with a college degree. I doubt MOOCs are going to cannibalize on-campus students, though it might impact continuing ed types of programs, maybe.