MOOCs

 MOOC(s):

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web.  In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets., many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education,  first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012.

Early MOOCs (cMOOCs) often emphasized open-access features, such as open licensing of content, structure and learning goals, to promote the reuse and remixing of resources. Some later MOOCs (xMOOCs) use closed licenses for their course materials while maintaining free access for students.

Precursors:

Before the Digital Age, distance learning appeared in the form of correspondence courses in the 1890s–1920s and later radio and television broadcast of courses and early forms of e-learning. Typically fewer than five percent of the students would complete a course. For example the Stanford Honors Cooperative Program, established in 1954, eventually offered video classes on-site at companies, at night, leading to a fully accredited Master's degree. This program was controversial because the companies paid double the normal tuition paid by full-time students. The 2000s saw changes in online or e-learning and distance education, with increasing online presence, open learning opportunities, and the development of MOOCs. By 2010 audiences for the most popular college courses such as "Justice" with Michael J. Sandel and "Human Anatomy" with Marian Diamond were reaching millions.

Early Approach:

The first MOOCs emerged from the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, which was sparked by MIT Open Courseware project. The OER movement was motivated from work by researchers who pointed out that class size and learning outcomes had no established connection, with Daniel Barwick’s  work being the most often-cited example. Within the OER movement, the Wikiversity was founded in 2006 and the first open course on the platform was organised in 2007. Ten-week course with more than 70 students was used to test the idea of making Wikiversity an open and free platform for education in the tradition of Scandinavian free adult education, Folk High School  and the free school movement The term MOOC was coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier of the University of Prince Edward Island in response to a course called Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (also known as CCK08). CCK08, consisted of 25 tuition-paying students in Extended Education at the University of Manitoba, as well as over 2200 online students from the general public who paid nothing. All course content was available through RSS (Really Simple Syndication)  feeds, and online students could participate through collaborative tools, including blog posts, threaded discussions in Moodle, and Second Life meetings. Stephen Downes considers these so-called cMOOCs to be more "creative and dynamic" than the current xMOOCs, which he believes "resemble television shows or digital textbooks."

Other cMOOCs were then developed; for example, Jim Groom from The University of Mary Washington and Michael Branson Smith of York College, City University of New York hosted MOOCs through several universities starting with 2011's 'Digital Storytelling' (ds106) MOOC. MOOCs from private, non-profit institutions emphasized prominent faculty members and expanded existing distance learning offerings (e.g., podcasts) into free and open online courses. Alongside the development of these open courses, other E-learning platforms emerged – such as Khan Academy, Peer-to-Peer University (P2PU), Udemy, and Alison – which are viewed as similar to MOOCs and work outside the university system or emphasize individual self-paced lessons.

 

 

cMOOCs and xMOOCs:

As MOOCs developed with time, multiple conceptions of the platform seem to have emerged. Mostly two different types can be differentiated: those that emphasize a connectivist philosophy, and those that resemble more traditional courses. To distinguish the two, several early adopters of the platform proposed the terms "cMOOC" and "xMOOC".

cMOOCs are based on principles from connectivist pedagogy indicating that material should be aggregated (rather than pre-selected), remixable, re-purposable, and feeding forward (i.e. evolving materials should be targeted at future learning). cMOOC instructional design approaches attempt to connect learners to each other to answer questions or collaborate on joint projects. This may include emphasizing collaborative development of the MOOC. Andrew Ravenscroft of the London Metropolitan University claimed that connectivist MOOCs better support collaborative dialogue and knowledge building.

xMOOCs have a much more traditional course structure. They are characterized by a specified aim of completing the course obtaining certain knowledge certification of the subject matter. They are presented typically with a clearly specified syllabus of recorded lectures and self-test problems. However, some providers require paid subscriptions for acquiring graded materials and certificates. They employ elements of the original MOOC, but are, in some effect, branded IT platforms that offer content distribution partnerships to institutions. The instructor is the expert provider of knowledge, and student interactions are usually limited to asking for assistance and advising each other on difficult points.

Emergence of Mooc Providers:

According to The New York Times, 2012 became "the year of the MOOC" as several well-financed providers, associated with top universities, emerged, including Coursera, Udacity and edX. Many universities scrambled to join in the "next big thing", as did more established online education service providers such as Blackboard Inc., in what has been called a "stampede." Dozens of universities in Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia have announced partnerships with the large American MOOC providers. By early 2013, questions emerged about whether academia was "MOOC'd out." This trend was later confirmed in continuing analysis.

The industry has an unusual structure, consisting of linked groups including MOOC providers, the larger non-profit sector, universities, related companies and venture capitalists. Among these,  the major providers are as the non-profits Khan Academy and edX, and the for-profits Udacity and Coursera. Related companies investing in MOOCs include Google. 

In the fall of 2011, Stanford University launched three courses. The first of those courses was Introduction Into AI, launched by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. Enrollment quickly reached 160,000 students. The announcement was followed within weeks by the launch of two more MOOCs, by Andrew Ng and Jennifer Widom. Following the publicity and high enrollment numbers of these courses, Thrun started a company he named Udacity and Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng launched Coursera.

In January 2013, Udacity launched its first MOOCs-for-credit, in collaboration with San Jose State University. In May 2013, the company announced the first entirely MOOC-based master's degree, a collaboration between Udacity, AT&T and the Georgia Institute of Technology, costing $7,000, a fraction of its normal tuition.  Concerned about the commercialization of online education, in 2012 MIT created the not-for-profit MITx.^] In September 2013, edX announced a partnership with Google to develop MOOC.org, a site for non-xConsortium groups to build and host courses. Google will work on the core platform development with edX partners. In addition, Google and edX will collaborate on research into how students learn and how technology can transform learning and teaching. MOOC.org will adopt Google's infrastructure. The Chinese Tsinghua University MOOC platform XuetangX.com (launched Oct. 2013) uses the Open edX platform.

Before 2013, each MOOC tended to develop its own delivery platform. EdX in April 2013 joined with Stanford University, which previously had its own platform called Class2Go, to work on XBlock SDK, a joint open-source platform. Stanford Vice Provost John Mitchell said that the goal was to provide the "Linux of online learning." This is unlike companies such as Coursera that have developed their own platform.

By November 2013, EdX offered 94 courses from 29 institutions around the world. Udacity offered 26 courses. The number of courses offered has since increased dramatically: As of January 2016, Edx offers 820 courses, Coursera offers 1580 courses and Udacity offers more than 120 courses. According to FutureLearn, the British Council's Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests has an enrollment of over 440,000 students.

Emergence of Innovative Courses:

Early cMOOCs such as CCK08 and ds106 used innovative pedagogy, with distributed learning materials rather than a video-lecture format, and a focus on education and learning, and digital storytelling respectively. Following the 2011 launch of three Stanford xMOOCs, including Introduction Into AI, launched by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig a number of other innovative courses have emerged. As of May 2014, more than 900 MOOCs are offered by US universities and colleges. As of February 2013, dozens of universities had affiliated with MOOCs, including many international institutions. In addition, some organisations operate their own MOOCs – including Google's Power Search.

A range of courses have emerged; "There was a real question of whether this would work for humanities and social science", said Ng. However, psychology and philosophy courses are among Coursera's most popular. Student feedback and completion rates suggest that they are as successful as math and science courses even though the corresponding completion rates are lower.

In January 2012, University of Helsinki launched a Finnish MOOC in programming. The MOOC is used as a way to offer high-schools the opportunity to provide programming courses for their students, even if no local premises or faculty that can organize such courses exist. The course has been offered recurringly, and the top-performing students are admitted to a BSc and MSc program in Computer Science at the University of Helsinki. On 18 June 2012, Ali Lemus from Galileo University launched the first Latin American MOOC.  

"Gender Through Comic Books" was a course taught by Ball State University by Christina Blanch on Instructure's Canvas Network, a MOOC platform launched in November 2012. The course used examples from comic books to teach academic concepts about gender and perceptions.

In November 2012, the University of Miami launched its first high school MOOC as part of Global Academy, its online high school. The course became available for high school students preparing for the SAT Subject Test in biology.

In the UK of summer 2013, Physiopedia ran their first MOOC regarding Professional Ethics in collaboration with University of the Western Cape in South Africa. In March 2013, Coursolve piloted a crowdsourced business strategy course for 100 organizations with the University of Virginia. A data science MOOC began in May 2013.

Students Experience and Pedagogy:

A course billed as "Asia's first MOOC" given by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology through Coursera starting in April 2013 registered 17,000 students. About 60% were from "rich countries" with many of the rest from middle-income countries in Asia, South Africa, Brazil or Mexico. Fewer students enrolled from areas with more limited access to the internet, and students from the People's Republic of China may have been discouraged by Chinese government policies. Koller stated in May 2013 that a majority of the people taking Coursera courses had already earned college degrees.

Jonathan Haber focused on questions of what students are learning and student demographics. About half the students taking US courses are from other countries and do not speak English as their first language. He found some courses to be meaningful, especially about reading comprehension. Video lectures followed by multiple choice questions can be challenging since they are often the "right questions." Smaller discussion boards paradoxically offer the best conversations. Larger discussions can be "really, really thoughtful and really, really misguided", with long discussions becoming rehashes or "the same old stale left/right debate."

MIT and Stanford University offered initial MOOCs in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Since engineering courses need prerequisites so at the outset upper-level engineering courses were nearly absent from the MOOC list. Now several universities are presenting undergraduate and advanced-level engineering courses.

Educator Experience:

In 2013, the Chronicle of Higher Education surveyed 103 professors who had taught MOOCs. "Typically a professor spent over 100 hours on his MOOC before it even started, by recording online lecture videos and doing other preparation", though some instructors' pre-class preparation was "a few dozen hours". The professors then spent 8–10 hours per week on the course, including participation in discussion forums.

The medians were: 33,000 students enrollees; 2,600 passing; and 1 teaching assistant helping with the class. 74% of the classes used automated grading, and 34% used peer grading. 97% of the instructors used original videos, 75% used open educational resources and 27% used other resources. 9% of the classes required a physical textbook and 5% required an e-book.

Unlike traditional courses, MOOCs require additional skills, provided by videographers, instructional designers, IT specialists and platform specialists. Georgia Tech professor.  The platforms have availability requirements similar to media/content sharing websites, due to the large number of enrollees. MOOCs typically use cloud computing and are often created with authoring systems. Authoring tools for the creation of MOOCs are specialized packages of educational software like Elicitus, IMC Content Studio and Lectora that are easy-to-use and support e-learning standards like SCORM and AICC. The Outcome or the result is much impressive through MOOCs than the traditional teaching and passing out students’ ratio.

Many MOOCs use video lectures, employing the old form of teaching (lecturing) using a new technology.  MOOC "courses are 'designed to be challenges,' not lectures, and the amount of data generated from these assessments can be evaluated 'massively using machine learning' at work behind the scenes. This approach, dispels 'the medieval set of myths' guiding teacher efficacy and student outcomes, and replaces it with evidence-based, 'modern, data-driven' educational methodologies that may be the instruments responsible for a 'fundamental transformation of education' itself".

Some view the videos and other material produced by the MOOC as the next form of the textbook. "MOOC is the new textbook", according to David Finegold of Rutgers University. A study of edX student habits found that certificate-earning students generally stop watching videos longer than 6 to 9 minutes. They viewed the first 4.4 minutes (median) of 12- to 15-minute videos. Some traditional schools blend online and offline learning, sometimes called flipped classrooms. Students watch lectures online at home and work on projects and interact with faculty while in class. Such hybrids can even improve student performance in traditional in-person classes.

Because of massive enrollments, MOOCs require instructional design that facilitates large-scale feedback and interaction. The two basic approaches are:

·        Peer-review and group collaboration

·        Automated feedback through objective, online assessments, e.g. quizzes and exams. Machine grading of written assignments is also underway.

Peer review is often based upon sample answers, which guide the grader on how many points to award different answers. These rubrics cannot be as complex for peer grading as for teaching assistants. Students are expected to learn via grading others and become more engaged with the course. Exams may be proctored at regional testing centers. Other methods, including "eavesdropping technologies worthy of the C.I.A." allow testing at home or office, by using webcams, or monitoring mouse clicks and typing styles. Special techniques such as adaptive testing may be used, where the test tailors itself given the student's previous answers, giving harder or easier questions accordingly.

"The most important thing that helps students succeed in an online course is interpersonal interaction and support", says Shanna Smith Jaggars, assistant director of Columbia University’s Community College Research Centre. Her research compared online-only and face-to-face learning in studies of community-college students and faculty in Virginia and Washington state.

Assigning mentors to students is another interaction-enhancing technique.^[60] In 2013 Harvard offered a popular class, The Ancient Greek Hero, instructed by Gregory Nagy and taken by thousands of Harvard students over prior decades. It appealed to alumni to volunteer as online mentors and discussion group managers. About 10 former teaching fellows also volunteered. The task of the volunteers, which required 3–5 hours per week, was to focus on online class discussion. The edX course registered 27,000 students.

Techniques for maintaining connection with students include adding audio comments on assignments instead of writing them, participating with students in the discussion forums, asking brief questions in the middle of the lecture, updating weekly videos about the course and sending congratulatory emails on prior accomplishments to students who are slightly behind. Grading by peer review has had mixed results. In one example, three fellow students grade one assignment for each assignment that they submit. The grading key or rubric tends to focus the grading, but discourages more creative writing.

Information Architecture:

When searching for the desired course, the courses are usually organized by "most popular" or a "topical scheme". Courses planned for synchronous learning are structured as an exact organizational scheme called a chronological scheme, Courses planned for asynchronous learning are also presented as a chronological scheme, but the order the information is learned as a hybrid scheme. In this way it can be harder to understand the course content and complete, because they are not based on an existing mental model.

Industry:

MOOCs are widely seen as a major part of a larger disruptive innovative taking place in higher education. In particular, the many services offered under traditional university business models are predicted to become unbundled and sold to students individually or in newly formed bundles. These   services include research, curriculum design, content generation (such as textbooks), teaching, assessment and certification (such as granting degrees) and student placement. MOOCs threaten existing business models by potentially selling teaching, assessment, or placement separately from the current package of services.

Principles of openness inform the creation, structure and operation of MOOCs. The extent to which practices of Open Design in educational technology are applied vary.

Attributes of major MOOC providers, with update
Initiatives	Nonprofit	Free to access	Certification fee	Institutional credits
edX	Yes	Partial	Yes	Partial
Coursera	No	Partial	Yes	Partial
Udacity	No	Partial	Yes	Partial
Udemy	No	Partial	Yes	Partial
P2PU	Yes	Yes	No	No

Fee Opportunities:

Course developers could charge licensing fees for educational institutions that use its materials. Introductory or "gateway" courses and some remedial courses may earn the most fees. Free introductory courses may attract new students to follow-on fee-charging classes. Blended courses supplement MOOC material with face-to-face instruction. Providers can charge employers for recruiting its students. Students may be able to pay to take a proctored exam to earn transfer credit at a degree-granting university, or for certificates of completion. Udemy allows teachers to sell online courses, with the course creators keeping 70–85% of the proceeds and intellectual property rights.

Benefits:

Improving access to higher education

MOOCs are regarded by many as an important tool to widen access to higher education (HE) for millions of people, including those in the developing world, and ultimately enhance their quality of life. MOOCs may be regarded as contributing to the democratisation of HE, not only locally or regionally but globally as well. MOOCs can help democratise content and make knowledge reachable for everyone. Students are able to access complete courses offered by universities all over the world, something previously unattainable. With the availability of affordable technologies, MOOCs increase access to an extraordinary number of courses offered by world-renowned institutions and teachers.

Providing an affordable alternative to formal education

The costs of tertiary education continue to increase because institutions tend to bundle too many services. With MOOCs, some of these services can be transferred to other suitable players in the public or private sector. MOOCs are for large numbers of participants, can be accessed by anyone anywhere as long as they have an Internet connection, are open to everyone without entry qualifications and offer a full/complete course experience online for free.

Sustainable development goals

MOOCs can be seen as a form of open education offered for free through online platforms. The (initial) philosophy of MOOCs is to open up quality higher education to a wider audience. As such, MOOCs are an important tool to achieve goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Offers a flexible learning schedule

Certain lectures, videos, and tests through MOOCs can be accessed at any time compared to scheduled class times. By allowing learners to complete their coursework in their own time, this provides flexibility to learners based on their own personal schedules.

Online collaboration

The learning environments of MOOCs make it easier for learners across the globe to work together on common goals. Instead of having to physically meet one another, online collaboration creates partnerships among learners. While time zones may have an effect on the hours that learners communicate, projects, assignments, and more can be completed to incorporate the skills and resources that different learners offer no matter where they are located. Distance and collaboration can benefit learners who may have struggled with traditionally more individual learning goals, including learning how to write.

Challenges and Criticism:

MOOCs face the following challenges:

1.     Relying on user-generated content can create a chaotic learning environment.

2.     Digital literacy is necessary to make use of the online materials.

3.     The time and effort required from participants may exceed what students are willing to commit to a free online course.

4.     Once the course is released, content will be reshaped and reinterpreted by the massive student body, making the course trajectory difficult for instructors to control.

5.     Participants must self-regulate and set their own goals.

6.     Language and translation barriers.

7.     Accessibility barriers for differently-abled users

8.     Access barriers for people from low socio-economic neighbourhoods and countries with very little internet access

These general challenges in effective MOOC development are accompanied by criticism by journalists and academics.

Some dispute that the "territorial" dimensions of MOOCs have received insufficient discussion or data-backed analysis, namely: 1. the true geographical diversity of enrolls in/completes courses; 2. the implications of courses scaling across country borders, and potential difficulties with relevance and knowledge transfer; and 3. the need for territory-specific study of locally relevant issues and needs.

Other features associated with early MOOCs, such as open licensing of content, open structure and learning goals, and community-centeredness, may not be present in all MOOC projects.

Effects on the structure of higher education were lamented, for example, by Moshe Y. Vardi, who finds an "absence of serious pedagogy in MOOCs", and indeed in all of higher education. He criticized the format of "short, unsophisticated video chunks, interleaved with online quizzes, and accompanied by social networking."^[ An underlying reason is simple cost-cutting pressures, which could hamstring the higher education industry.

Alternative to MOOCs:

At least one alternative to MOOCs has advocates: Distributed Open Collaborative Courses (DOCC) challenge the roles of the instructor, hierarchy, money and massiveness. DOCC recognizes that the pursuit of knowledge may be achieved better by not using a centralized singular syllabus, that expertise is distributed throughout all the participants and does not just reside with one or two individuals.

Another alternative to MOOCs is the self-paced online course (SPOC) which provides a high degree of flexibility. Students can decide on their own pace and with which session they would like to begin their studies. According to a report by Class Central founder Dhawal Shah, more than 800 self-paced courses have been available in 2015.

Although the purpose of MOOCs is ultimately to educate more people, recent criticisms include accessibility and a Westernized curriculum that leads to a failure to reach the same audiences marginalised by traditional methods.

The Experience of English Language Learners (ELLs) in MOOCs:

Language of instruction is one of the major barriers that ELLs face in MOOCs. In recent estimates, almost 75% of MOOC courses are presented in the English language, however, native English speakers are a minority among the world's population. This issue is mediated by the increasing popularity of English as a global language, and therefore has more second language speakers than any other language in the world. This barrier has encouraged content developers and other MOOC stakeholders to develop content in other popular languages to increase MOOC access. However, research studies show that some ELLs prefer to take MOOCs in English, despite the language challenges, as it promotes their goals of economic, social, and geographic mobility. This emphasizes the need to not only provide MOOC content in other languages, but also to develop English language interventions for ELLs who participate in English MOOCs.

Areas that ELLs particularly struggle with in English MOOCs include MOOC content without corresponding visual supporting materials (e.g., an instructor narrating instruction without text support in the background), or their hesitation to participate in MOOC discussion forums. Active participation in MOOC discussion forums has been found to improve students grades, their engagement, and leads to lower dropout rates, however, ELLs are more likely to be spectators than active contributors in discussion forums.

Researching studies show a “complex mix of affective, socio-cultural, and educational factors” that are inhibitors to their active participation in discussion forums. As expected, English as the language of communication poses both linguistic and cultural challenges for ELLs, and they may not be confident in their English language communication abilities. Discussion forums may also be an uncomfortable means of communication especially for ELLs from Confucian cultures, where disagreement and arguing one’s points are often viewed as confrontational, and harmony is promoted. Therefore, while ELLs may be perceived as being uninterested in participating, research studies show that they do not show the same hesitation in face-to-face discourse. Finally, ELLs may come from high power distance cultures,  where teachers are regarded as authority figures, and the culture of back and forth conversations between teachers and students is not a cultural norm. As a result, discussion forums with active participation from the instructors may cause discomfort and prevent participation of students from such cultures.