Tag Archives: MOOC

Opening the Walls of Academia

Leave a reply

Open book in a field.I am just finishing the second in a series of three open courses in computational statistics and machine learning. I wrote earlier about various forms of education delivery but I want to concentrate this week on what is becoming known as open education or open learning. This type of learning goes beyond the traditional university structure to bring knowledge to many more students through nontraditional means.

The Walls of Academia

Aristotle founded the Peripatetic school in the Greek Lyceum in 335 BCE to teach principles of math, philosophy, and rhetoric. A peripatetic school is a strolling school. It is thought that Aristotle walked the grounds discussing philosophy and other subjects with his students. There was a gymnasium for exercise, but learning for the most part took place in the open among the trees.

I get the sense that we are slowly returning to the early days of the lyceum, if only figuratively. We are opening the walls of academia to allow for learning beyond the traditional campus and sharing our expertise and wisdom with a larger audience. The physical campus will continue to be relevant, but successful universities will embrace education beyond the classroom. We have had traditional Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for several years, but consider these other developments.

Beyond the Walls

The Open University was founded in 1969 in the UK to provide postsecondary education to more UK citizens. This nonprofit school was built on the principles that there would be no formal entry requirements and education would be provided on campuses and through nontraditional delivery. They started out teaching some courses through television programs and now reach a worldwide audience. There are campuses outside of London, in Northern Ireland, The Republic of Ireland, Wales, and Scotland and serve students outside of the UK through their OpenLearn arm, MOOCs, and YouTube lectures.

Open Curriculum

MIT Open Courseware is a web-based publication of virtually all MIT course content. This is free and open to the world through a Creative Commons license. Anyone can watch recorded lectures, read lecture notes, and access the full syllabus complete with readings and required texts. I am working through an introductory quantum physics course right now, which is fantastic. Students can get an introduction to a topic or fill gaps in their knowledge and university instructors can gain insights to help freshen their course. The introductory freshman level courses could also be valuable to high school teachers of advanced classes. High school students can use them to get a feel for university courses and also to advance their high school knowledge. This site has a number of corporate sponsors whose employees could benefit from new skills learned in the courses as well.

Thoughts

These are just a couple of examples of how education and knowledge are moving beyond the walls of traditional colleges and universities. More people than ever have access to higher education thanks to technology and enlightened thinking from the institutions. This can only benefit us as individuals and as a society if we are willing to take advantage of these opportunities. My challenge to you this week is this: if you are not already engaged in full time or part time studies, find a topic that interests you and explore the many resources that are open. Let me know what you find and what you learned.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Making Education Accessible and Affordable

5 Replies

book of knowledgeHow can we creatively make higher education more affordable and accessible? I am wrapping up preparations for a course on innovation later this month and my thoughts turn to ways to apply innovative ideas to higher education. There are some new ideas that have developed over the last several years such as online delivery, but they have not always been implemented in a deliberate and holistic manner. I am hoping that you will weigh in and help me figure out how we can create new solutions to this long-standing problem.

What Is Our Mission?

Harvard professor Clayton Christensen suggests that there are really three purposes of higher education and that we as universities and colleges often dilute our focus and try to cover all three areas with a confusing combination of products. The three suggested areas are:

  • knowledge creation, or research;
  • knowledge proliferation, or teaching; and
  • preparation for life and careers.

Christensen claims that universities use three different business models to deliver these value propositions, creating confusing products in the process. He suggests that we be clear and purposeful about our mission, our value proposition, and how we deliver our product. This clarity can help reduce program administrative costs and therefore help reduce tuition.

Innovations in Education

Universities and colleges have been working through different delivery methods in recent years to make higher education more accessible. Several of these have been centered around online delivery. Correspondence courses have been available since the mid-nineteenth century and as technology and networking improved, these morphed into online courses. To make education more accessible, massive open online courses (MOOCs) were developed that enrolled thousands or even tens of thousands of students in various subjects. These are free or low cost but do not generally grant credit. Some universities such as Stanford are experimenting with hybrid MOOCs whereby a student can take the online course and apply and pay for credit. The University of Pittsburgh is experimenting with what they call a HOOC or a hybrid open online course. In this model, the course is offered online and onsite simultaneously and at some point during the course, the online students can join the onsite students synchronously, often offering input through tweets or other discussion applications. Online education—in all its forms—has made learning more accessible to those that are not near a college or cannot take courses at the time prescribed.

Employer Criteria

One of the most important factors in aligning higher education with employment is understanding what an employer wants in an educated worker. Are they looking for someone with a broad four-plus year education and exposure to many ideas and thoughts, or are they looking for someone that has proven mastery in a particular area? Would a series of technical certificates prove the worth of a potential employee, or do they need to produce an advanced degree from a recognized college or university? I believe the problem is two pronged and we need to address both areas. As mentioned earlier, universities need to develop expertise delivering in a prescribed area rather than trying to cover all business models. Additionally, employers need to be precise in their requirements for employment and not add layers of education that are unneeded. If we can tackle these two areas, then we can come closer to matching delivery to expectation and drive down the overall cost of education while increasing accessibility.

Thoughts

Do you have specific thoughts on innovations that will help lessen tuition and make education more accessible? I know that greater minds than mine are working on this very problem and I welcome your input and ideas. Perhaps together, we can come up with a solution.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional and assistant professor of practice for the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

Educational Trends: MOOCs Revisited

Leave a reply

shutterstock_100060127In the education community there was a lot of talk over the past two years about MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. Some saw it as a panacea for delivering education to all at a low cost. Others believed it to be the next generation in online education. Many saw it as the beginning of the end of traditional universities and degrees.

There is not as much talk these days about MOOCs, so I set out to research why. Are they so mainstream now that they do not get press, or did they prove to be a passing experiment? Is the answer somewhere in between? I completed a MOOC last year and am scheduled to start another one in January, so I have an active interest in the trends.

Definition

A MOOC is an online college level course that is generally offered for free. Because there is no cost and no residency requirement they often attract thousands of students (thus, the “massive” in MOOC). There are three main providers: Coursera and Udacity, which are for-profit corporations; and EdX, a nonprofit organization founded by MIT and Harvard. There are also several smaller players. MOOCs are taught by college professors. There are usually no graded assignments and no college credit given, although this is changing. University of Washington started offering credit for enhanced MOOC courses in 2012. Enhanced means that there are additional assessments and a fee, in return for college credit. A press release from Antioch University in May 2014 announced that it will offer college credit for a Coursera MOOC, as the first school to purchase newly offered licenses. It will not be free, but Antioch officials say it will be less expensive than a traditional California university system course. Antioch is calling this a “facilitated MOOC,” so I suspect that they will be administering tests in a hybrid version of the traditional online course.

Detractors

Detractors of MOOCs point to the high dropout rate as evidence that this is a flawed experiment. In a recent online MIT physics course approximately 17,000 students enrolled but only 1,000 earned a certificate of completion. Interestingly, the research showed that students who completed the course progressed “comparable to what some MIT students showed when they were required to take the introductory course on campus.”

The argument against the value of MOOCs generally centers on the fact that because the course is free and no college credit is awarded there is no motivation to complete it. In other words, the reward of credit leading to a diploma is the only reason that students start and finish classes. The detractors claim there is no motivation to learn strictly for learning’s sake.

Supporters

Supporters point to the fact that college education is now available to anyone with an Internet connection. They say this levels the playing field between the haves and have-nots. To some extent this is true. There are many courses offered by Coursera, EdX, Udacity, and others, at little or no cost, that will enhance or replace a conventional college education for motivated students. The caveat is, as I pointed out above, the individual has to be motivated to learn and to progress for the sake of learning, knowing there will be no traditional diploma to show a prospective employer. There are certificates of completion, which may become currency in the future, but such credentials are not yet widely recognized.

Thoughts

Recent statistics compiled by Edudemic helped me understand the current landscape of MOOCs. This infographic illustrates who is enrolling in MOOCs and if they are getting a quality education. Here are some interesting statistics from the article:

Coursera now has 3.3 million students in 196 countries and sixty-two university partners.

  • 61.5% of students enrolled in a MOOC are from outside the US.
  • Brazil, China, India, Canada, and the UK boast high percentage of enrolled students.
  • 70% already have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
  • 80% take other courses online for credit.
  • 50% are age twenty-six years or older.

MOOCs burst onto the scene in 2011 and the New York Times declared 2012 “The Year Of The MOOC.” In 2014, the number and range of course offerings, the number of students, and the quality of education delivered appear to have stabilized. Two questions remain in my mind: 1.) How do we engage students in a MOOC to increase the completion rate, and;  2.) What is the value of a MOOC certificate to a future employer? I will be watching this trend closely.

Have you taken a MOOC? What was your experience? Would you take another one? Let me know your thoughts.

Author Kelly BrownAbout Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT and business topics that keep him up at night.

 

The Future of Online Education

2 Replies

Online education has crept into every level of the academic system, from grade school to graduate school. It is now even prevalent in the corporate world as a viable means to train the workforce in areas such as safety, security, and corporate policies.

History

Online education is really just an offshoot of the old correspondence courses, which allowed people to take classes by mail. With modern technology, it is much faster and more efficient than the days of mailing in your test. There is an informative infographic at straighterline.com which chronicles the history of higher education up to the modern day.

I taught my first online course in 2006. I will admit that I was skeptical at first. How can I be the “sage on the stage” when there is no stage? How can my brilliant wit come shining through emoticons? I was pleasantly surprised after I taught my first course. The students learned as much, if not more, than had I been at the front of the room at the center of attention, and that is the point. Once I removed myself as the only expert in the room, the students shared experiences and learned from each other. It is very important to set up the course correctly in order to stimulate dialogue and interaction but, once it starts, get out of the way and let the learning begin. The instructor then becomes a guide as much as a lecturer.

Current State

Today, most public and private universities offer at least one online course and many offer entire online degrees. Employers are accepting online degrees from reputable universities, just as if someone had spent that same time “in the seat”. Many are using the same tools as part of their corporate training. They recognize the quality and efficiency that distributed education brings. If the tools and curriculum are high quality, they can easily rival traditional education.

Tools

Course management systems such as Blackboard and eCollege have been around for at least ten years and provide the instructor with a structure for creating and housing online courses and provides the class structure for shared discussions, file repositories, and impromptu virtual meetings. These tools promote open learning and discussion while maintaining the structure of a traditional course. Course development and presentation tools are being refined constantly and new versions are available for the mobile platform.

Future State

New tools are coming online that facilitate learning, either for a credit bearing degree or for a life skill or interest. Online education is going mobile and is going very broad. With the advent of MOOC’s or Massive Open Online Courses, companies such as EdX or Coursera are providing the structure for offering courses from prestigious universities such as MIT and Stanford. It is still to be determined how one obtains credit or a certificate from these courses and whether these will be recognized by an employer or another university. With the opening of these courses and online courses around the world, education has come out of the traditional classroom and is now available to any new or continuing student. This is one genie that won’t go back in the bottle.

Let me know what you think the future holds for online education and for education in general.

 

About Kelly Brown

Kelly Brown is an IT professional, adjunct faculty for the University of Oregon, and academic director of the UO Applied Information Management Master’s Degree Program. He writes about IT topics that keep him up at night.