Massive Open Online Courses
Massively Open Online Courses, otherwise known as MOOCs, are increasingly talked about in the world of education, in both a positive and negative sense.
But are we dealing with a product that will spell the end of education as we know it? Or is it just a lot of media hype that is destined to peter out?
Though the MOOC landscape is diverse and constantly evolving, here are some facts about MOOCs that can help you ponder where you stand on the issue.
*When it comes to the users...
- Most MOOC registrants already have a bachelor’s degree.
- Most are men.
- An overwhelming majority of them do not finish the course (and hence do not gain a certificate of completion).
- A tiny minority of them are from underdeveloped countries.
- Their median age is 24.
- More than one third never view any of the course material.
**When it comes to the providers...
- Many are "elite" institutions of the likes of Harvard, MIT, Stanford.
- Engage highly qualified professors & advisers.
- Have an average class size of around 50,000.
- Have developed a mix of non-profit and for-profit MOOCs.
- Have attracted significant amounts of funding, including venture capital.
As ever, these facts need to be taken with a pinch of salt. On the user side, the data originates from a relatively very small sample of MOOCs that can’t necessarily be considered to be representative of the wider picture. The same is true of the provider-side statements, which are based on an analysis of three MOOCs that – despite being among the biggest & most popular – only make up a tiny percentage of the whole.
But they do bring up some interesting points from both a student and an educator/training provider point of view.
Let’s take the education providers first. On the one hand, the fact that so many MOOC participants are already highly qualified points to the fact that MOOCs are not really competing with higher education insitutions, but rather with further education and professional development providers who target an older, more experienced demographic. In this sense, just the sheer number of professionals signing up for these massive open courses – and the fact that many are entirely free – should be enough to make any "old school" training company quake in their boots.
On the other, the fact that average completion rates are so low suggests that they are still far from being a real threat to traditional classroom training or even e-learning in the non-massive sense. With an average of less than 10% of participants actually getting to the end of the course, perhaps education providers should think twice before jumping on the MOOC bandwagon at the expense of other forms of training.
When it comes to the users, the quality of the institutions and professors delivering the training is definitely an attractive factor. Traditionally, not many people have been able to say that they went to Harvard, but edX MOOCs have opened up this opportunity to virtually anyone in the world. Of course, it is not quite the same as completing a 4-year degree at Harvard, and we all know that, but it does make world-class education imminently more accessible than it has been in the past.
At the same time, it is difficult to say how much the average student is really able to get out of it when they have 49,999 classmates to contend with. Not only is it an issue of personal attention and support – which MOOC participants typically don’t get a lot of – but also about the level at which the training is delivered. The reality is that when you are trying to accommodate such wildly different levels of prior knowledge and experience, it is incredibly difficult to develop a course outline that is challenging enough for those who are most knowledgeable, but also accessible enough for those who are less familiar with the topics. What often happens is that you try to please everyone by making concessions on all sides, only to find that you end up pleasing no one at all.
This is an issue that has always represented a challenge for education providers, but is of course exacerbated when the number of people in your class is counted in five digits rather than one or two.
Perhaps the most interesting development to watch out for in the future is related to profit and how these these traditionally (though not exclusively) free courses will evolve both in terms of what they cost and the revenue they create. Will it become apparent that MOOCs are simply drains on an organisation’s resources, with no real potential to give back what they take? Or will they reveal themselves to be the goldmines that many have always been certain they would become?
For now, the jury is still out.
*This data originates from a study conducted by MIT and Harvard researchers in 2012-13, who studied aspects of 17 different MOOCs through edX – the online learning platform established by the two universities.
**These figures have been collected from a number of sources including onlineschools.org and chronicle.com.