​JISC centis: centre for educational technology & interoperability

MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for  Higher Education: A  white  paper 

By  Li  Yuan  and  Stephen  Powell

March 2013

http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2013/667 (accessed 15/09/2016 17:00)

This summary does not cover this white paper in detail, however I highly recommend reading it regardless that some of the information is out of date regarding revenue streams, figures and the status of some MOOC suppliers. This paper covers how MOOCs impact the Education market and HEIs in particular; covers the current players and how they interact and grow with or separate to HEIs and how HEIs can potentially utilise MOOCs. A clear message that MOOCs are here to stay and the UK educational institutes need to find new business plans, perspectives and possibly pedagogies to adapt to how MOOCs have disrupted the landscape of education.

Definitions

White Paper: (in the UK) a government report giving information or proposals on an issue.

Higher Education: (in terms of UK) non mandatory education after GCSEs including AS/A2 levels, undergraduate and post-graduate

Course Provision: The scope and resources for a course and an outline of the responsibilities and expected outcomes. A specification of the course, a guarantee from the course provider. Regulations and quality proceedures are planned and outlined to ensure the Course provision is met.

Theory of Disruptive Innovation (Bower & Christensen 1995): innovations delivered in a way that goes against the market expectations.

Venture Capitalists: “an investor who either provides capital to startup ventures or supports small companies that wish to expand but do not have access to equities markets.” – investopedia.com

Open Education: broadened access to education.

Disaggregate: to separate into component parts.

Revenue Streams: sources of incoming funds.

Pedagogy: “method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept.” – Google

Processed-based approach: Focusing on the activities and interactions within the course/learning

Content-based approach: Focusing on the resources and layout of the course.

Philanthropic: “a person or organization seeking to promote the welfare of others” – Google. This is often shown by the giving or raising of money for a charitable or humanitarian cause.

Sustainability: the ability to maintain a behaviour or condition indefinitely.

Autonomous Business Unit: A way to coordinate multiple resources into one company or network which internalises competition and analysis; making the whole independent of the current market.

Open Education: Initiatives that broaden the access to educational services/materials.

Copyright: “exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.” – Google.

OCR: a leading UK awarding body, providing qualifications for learners of all ages at school, college, in work or through part-time learning programmes.

OER: Open Education Resources

HEI: Higher Education Institutes

MOOC: Massive Open Online Course

cMOOC: “connectivist MOOCs which are based on a connectivism theory of learning with networks developed informally” “collaborative learning” of like-minded individuals.

xMOOC: “content-based MOOCs which follow a more behaviourist approach” “instructional pedagogy” mirroring the institutions with video lectures and testing.

Sustaining innovations: ones that improve existing services/products, used by HEI.

Disruptive innovations: ones that create a new market, by combining new technology and their business model to target: lowering the price of a service, a new consumer base or an alternative need of the current consumer base, used by start-ups.

Undershot customers: customers willing to pay for improvements of an existing service/product

Overshot customers: where a customers needs are more than provided fro by the existing service/product

UKeU programme: Was an online learning solution that was supply driven not demand led, had low participation and flopped.

Homogeny: a form similar to a common origin, so in this context learning that is similar to the traditional medium and structure, e.g. an online lecture

Diversity: a range of forms, so in this context many ways of learning with different formats and sources for materials. 

TELMap 2012 higher Education scenario Traditional University: homogenous higher education delivered face to face

TELMap 2012 higher Education scenario Unidiversity: diverse higher education delivered face to face

TELMap 2012 higher Education scenario Hybrid University: homogenous higher education delivered online

TELMap 2012 higher Education scenario Online University: diverse higher education delivered online

Open Curriculum: mix resources for autonomous self directed learners

Open Learning: teacher and learners “generate and share new ideas”-in the-“learning process”, aimed at self determined independent learners

Open Assessment: “p2p or crowd sourced assessment with on demand accreditation”

Open Platform: create and maintain UI with open standards to easily exchange information and data

Demographic: The target or current pool of users/consumers of a product or service

Business Strategy: plan considering finances and requirements for a product or service

Business Model: analytical approach to the way a product is developed covering behaviours towards the current market, safe guards and considerations. This can cover company culture and values.

Strategic Plan: step by step plan and any possible alternative routes to achieve a goal

Notes

This paper covered the MOOCs as a disruptive innovation and how the current HEI work with MOOCs an the future potential and requirements of MOOCs as they change the HE market.

Key benefits of MOOCs that fill the needs of HEIs

Globalization of education, experimentation with new business models and pedagogy, lowering cost to the HEI and increasing the affordability to the student, cheap data analysis on how students learn/course material/delivery methods, branding and marketing of the university and it’s courses to improve awareness and reputation, being able to provide credit for students who fall short in their course requirements, extra revenue streams from certification or course access, material easily adapted and deployed in light of course changes, to be able to provide many different formats of material so the learner has choice in learning style, scalable to accommodate huge amounts of students, nurturing partnerships with commercial organizations to increase networks and student recruitment levels, ability to detect under performing or undesirable courses to then either renovate or remove it, supply education to life long learners, enables connections with social media, ability to collaborate with other institutions/educators/learners locally and globally.

Main pedagogies

xMOOC, cMOOC non-profit, cMOOC for profit.

Different business model features

Fees for certificates, fees for participation, fees for access, fees for grading, tuition fee on credited courses, fees to access social media features, selling student information, advertising, course sponsorship, enterprises pay to run their course, applicant screening, human tutoring, human assessment marking, job match services / recruiting tools, appeal for philanthropic donations, non profit.

Concerns raised for HEIs utilising MOOCs

Format suitable only for tech-literate teachers and students, difficult to know what pedagogy is suitable for MOOC format for given course material, difficult to guarantee quality teaching, possibly ambiguous responsibility for the learning process and the examination standards, examination marking resources to cope with potential increase in students and/or assessment submissions, sustainability issues,  motivation of learners, adopting the format poorly or with the wrong strategy could dramatically damage the learning experience and potentially the reputation of the course, budget concerns especially for the initial setup costs, increase of peer engagement/assessment/support could lead to increase of plagiarism or cheating

Elements for my project to consider

This paper outlines the key users as Educators and Ventre Capitalists. In light that the paper is really a strong argument to encourage HEIs to devise a plan and a pedagogy in which to adapt to utilizing MOOCs, and it’s evident that they have not been integrated into course delivery yet, I will focus on HE educators as my target user. I hope to address the concerns that this medium is harder for non tech literate staff and students, hopefully making an east guide to facilitate the creation of an academic MOOC.

It would seem wise to create personas for different potential users, staff, students and non-students if applicable MOOC is not internal use only; use published their demographic studies from MOOCs if available.

Looking into how MOOCs may compliment other teaching processes would be useful to note.

To outline the current differences in style, content and features of those MOOCs in collaboration with universities and those not, should show which features to potentially exclude from the guide.

Copyright requirements, licencing requirements and security guidance should be covered.

Considering I will be focused to provide guidance for developing MOOC as an extension, element or alternative to HEI course material I will be looking at the xMOOC format and those MOOCs currently using it. cMOOCs are a consideration as a compliment to course but is not suitable for early stages of integration into course provision.

Extra

Just want to share a my favourite quote from this paper: “ The development of MOOCs is rooted within the ideals of openness, that knowledge should be shared freely, and the desire to learn should be met without demographic, economic or geological constraints.”