MOOCs: The evolution of open knowledge
Educamericas, July 3 2013.
Abstract
Los Cursos Masivos Abiertos o Massive Open Online Course (MOOC, por sus siglas en inglés) han venido entrando con bastante fuerza. Durante los últimos cinco años, este tipo de programas ha despertado el interés de prestigiosas universidades, las que se han unido a reconocidas plataformas a nivel internacional para impartir sus propios MOOCs. Pero qué es lo que despierta el interés en estos cursos, y cómo éstos pueden beneficiar a las instituciones de educación superior, son algunas de las interrogantes que Educamericas busca responder en el siguiente reportaje.
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Translation of the original interview published in Spanish.
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) have broken pretty hard. During the last five years, this type of course has attracted interest from prestigious universities that have joined internationally recognized platforms to run their own MOOCs. But what arouses interest in these courses, and how higher education institutions can benefit from them are some of the questions that Educamericas seeks to answer in the following report.
A MOOC must comply with some requirements: it must be a course, online, free -open-, massive and be prepared for the enrollment of thousands of students, therefore in most cases it must be self-formative. A term that may seem novel but not so much in its format, experts say it is a format that has been done well before.
Some experts consider them to be a pedagogical innovation, whereas others consider them to be a change in the business model in higher education. For Sergio Luján Mora, Professor at the Department of Software and Computing Systems at the University of Alicante (UA), the opinions are varied. "While there are many people who think that revolution is an adjective to refer to MOOCs, there are those who think the opposite and who think MOOCs are a continuation of traditional teaching methods moved to the Web, with the use of new technological tools as video".
The computer systems expert states that if you look at the demographics of students who follow MOOCs, it is found that the highest percentage of students ranges from 30 to 40 years old and have a higher degree as a bachelor, a master or even there is a significant percentage of doctoral students. "This fact can be interpreted as an evidence that there are many people who want to learn, just for the pleasure of learning, or because of the need to learn for their career, and nevertheless traditional models of teaching and learning do not meet their needs or opportunities (due to lack of time, work and family commitments, etc.)".
Moreover, and according to Oscar Fuente, director of Open IEBS, these courses are a marketing tool for both universities and schools. "It is very powerful because it relies on creating a greater demand for quality training. On the other hand, it will be a benefit to the student because their standard of quality and demand regarding the center will rise due to the reference for what you get from a free course. And finally, business models will emerge around this format".
If we stop to reflect, training events for free have always existed, but in person, and they do not have emptied the classrooms of schools, is considered by IEBS scholar. "The thing to think about is where the role of the university and the school evolves to in this scenario". And, with respect to a change in the business model, Lujan adds that "there are attempts to change the business model, but for now they are just experiments. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons for the success of MOOCs is because they are free. If it starts to charge for access to MOOCs, advertising is included or other strategies are used, it is likely that the number of students in the MOOCs will decrease considerably".
The benefits?
Clearly, access to open knowledge of the great universities in the world produces a great power of attraction, but the quality, the subject, and the certification are also elements to be considered. "The more attractive the subject is and the higher quality the course has, the more popular the course becomes. In that sense, there are MOOC courses of high quality and demand, such as Gamification (University of Pennsylvania-Coursera) or Growth Hacking (Open IEBS) that differ considerably from the rest because they deal with current issues. This factor does not occur typically, because the assessment is made by a teacher and therefore they offer the possibility of obtaining a certificate", said Fuente.
To the above, the director of Open IEBS adds that "most universities have chosen to publish the contents more standardized and embrace a self-formative model, but the problem is that many people enroll but only a few finish the course. We are talking about official statistics that do not reach the 10% of people who start, i.e. people that at least have connected once.
But the real innovation in the field of MOOCs has been the emergence of large universities and large platforms that bring together the courses, where they have published their educational materials, which has led them to get a lot more visibility and reach mass audiences.
Lujan states that at the moment there are many doubts about what is the real benefit higher education institutions can obtain thanks to this approach. "There are universities and professors who have rejected the chance to join Coursera, edX or Udacity becaus they do not see clear benefits. Therefore, the benefits that are being raised now are purely speculative and there is no evidence that they will achieve".
Fuente agrees that many university has not yet defined their objective when developing a MOOC. But those that have done it do it to "be publicized, capture future customers, increase the need for training (the more I learn, the more I want to learn) and even to add valid business models adapted to the MOOC format, including human tutoring or payment for certificates, which have a prefixed cost and students decide if they want to pay for it".
However, the expert of the University of Alicante, states that "obviously, there may be an economic benefit because they can develop new business models. But there is also the indirect benefit that provides 'be riding the wave' of innovation in technology and education. Many universities are participating in the MOOC movement not because they clear the benefit to be obtained, but by the fear of being taken down and stop being among the best universities in the world".
More information: MOOCs: The evolution of open knowledge