MOOCs - Amazon Web Services€¦ · driven by the rise of MOOCs, in the way higher education...

MOOCsMassive Open Online Courses

Massive Open Online Course, a term used to describe web technologies that have enabled

educators to create virtual classrooms of thousands of students. Typical MOOCs involve a series of 10-20

minute lectures with built-in quizzes, weekly auto-graded assignments, and TA/professor

moderated discussion forums. Notable companies include Coursera, edX, and Udacity.

MOOC(noun)

1

THE HISTORY OF DISTANCE LEARNING

1840s

MAIL

RADIO

TV

ONLINE

1920s1960s

2000s

1 THE HISTORY OF DISTANCE LEARNING

As technology has evolved, so has distance learning. It began with mailing books and syllabi to students, then radio lectures, then tv courses, and now online courses.

2

WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT?

Beginning with the first correspondence courses in the 1890s from Columbia University, distance learning has been an important means of making higher education available to the masses. As technology has evolved, so has distance learning; and in just the last 5 years a new form of education has arisen, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). MOOCs are becoming increasingly popular all over the world and the means by which learning is measured, evaluated, and accredited has become topic of controversy in higher education.

2 WHY ARE MOOCs DIFFERENT?

Short (10-20 minute) lectures recorded specifically for online

Quizzes that are usually integrated into lectures



TA / Professor moderated discussion forums

Letters, badges, or certificate of completion


Graded assignments with set due dates (graded by computer)

Large class sizes (often tens of thousands of students)


Final exams and grades

Automated grading

3

COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES

The modern MOOC began with an open Computer Science course at

Stanford, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, taught by Professor

Sebastian Thrun in 2011. The wildly successful course, with 160,000

students in attendance, led Thrun (along with his colleagues David

Stavens and Mike Sokolsky) to create Udacity in 2012, kicking o� MOOC

mania.

3 COMPANIES AND UNIVERSITIES SERVE MOOCs TO THE MASSES


WHYFOUNDED

Enable the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students. To serve students who were not enrolled on a traditional campus.

Bring education to the masses & research how students learn and how technology can transform learning.

Expanded after huge popularity of initial experimental AI course.

FOUNDEDBY

Andrew Ng

(Stanford)

Daphne Koller (Stanford)

Anant Agarwal MIT and Harvard President (MIT)

Sebastian Thrun Mike Sokolsky David Stavens

(Stanford)

2012 April 2012 2011DATE FOUNDED


REVENUEMODEL

Revenue through Amazon a�liate program.

“Signature Track”: $30-100 for course credit.#

$60-90 proctored exams.

Coursera Career Services

Non-profit.

Revenue through retail partners like textbook suppliers.

Non-profit.

Revenue through retail partners like textbook suppliers.

Udacity Career Placement Program


PROFITSHARING

Partner universities get 6-15% of gross revenue, plus 20% of profits generated by “aggregate set of courses provided by the university”.

University Produced: edX collects first $50k generated by course, $10k for recurring courses. University gets 50% of all further revenue.

EdX Produced: Costs $250k for each new course, $50k for additional terms. University gets 70% of revenue.

Courses produced in-house independent of universities.


CREDITMODEL

Identity verified, “Signature Track” courses o�er accredited completion certificate.

Universities accept credit after completion of certificate & final.

REACH 33 Colleges and Universities

1.9 Million Registered Users

6 Universities

600,000 Users

24 Classes

400,000 Users

22 active courses

4

CONTROVERSY

Some courses have already been accredited and universities are beginning to accept transfer credit for completing MOOCs. These companies have quickly grown in size and hype, and their rapid growth has led to many questions around how MOOCs may shape the future of higher education.

As MOOCs become increasingly popular all over the world, the means by which learning is measured, evaluated, and credited is a topic of controversy in higher education.

4 CONTROVERSY

Coursera, Udacity, and edX were not originally meant to grant credit, and the recent push from administrators to enable students to earn credit for the successful completion of a MOOC raises many questions.

5

DISCUSSIONS TODAY

What are people saying?

"MOOCs are just the tip of the iceberg," said John Mitchell, professor of computer science and Stanford's first vice provost for online learning. "One of the great things about online technology is we can produce one kind of material – a video, an interactive session, an experimental laboratory that is online – and use it in multiple di�erent ways. We're evolving our way of presenting educational material."

55 DISCUSSIONS TODAY

5 DISCUSSIONS TODAY

Credit: 72% of professors say students should NOT earn units for MOOCs.

Cons: 55% say teaching a MOOC diverts their attention away from their existing responsibilities on campus.

Pros: MOOCs have the potential to greatly further the spread of higher knowledge and help individual professors gain larger recognition for their work. Some professors report having higher engagement with their students, and believe MOOCs will produce a larger number of solutions for projects and assignments, as many more students will be participating.

Professors


Presidents remain unpersuaded by, if not skeptical of, MOOC mania.

Only 14 percent of presidents strongly agree, and another 28 percent agree, that massive open online courses have “great potential to make a positive impact” on higher education; 31 percent disagree or strongly disagree, and the rest are neutral.

Presidents


The biggest concern remains how to keep the integrity of the student record. If a student is attempting to receive credit for completing a MOOC course, how does a university verify the student’s identity and that that student completed the assignments and passed the exams?

Needs: Keeping constantly informed about the issues surrounding MOOCs will help Registrars fully support the needs of their faculty and students.

Registrars

Legislators are primarily concerned with remedying the problems of accessibility and a�ordability in public higher education. Many public institutions struggle with over-enrollment in core classes necessary for graduation and MOOCs have the potential to help students complete their degrees on time. By passing legislation to permit the teaching of core classes using MOOCs, legislators and universities stand to gain huge cost savings.

Legislators



The biggest challenge will be in supporting the resource needs of their institution’s courses. The open nature of a MOOCs course necessitates using content with open copyrights.

Librarians


MOOCs will provide new opportunities to help employers find and evaluate candidates. In the future, employers will be able to purchase access to student names and accomplishments and students can leverage their new skills to land better jobs.

Employers


MOOC courses have been met with resistance from tuition-paying students who want distinct experiences for the amount of money they pay.

Students

6

MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE?

In the future we may see major changes, driven by the rise of MOOCs, in the way higher education institutions measure achievement, o�er courses, and earn revenue.

Universities hit hard by budget cuts may o�oad the economic burden of lower-level

courses like introductory mathematics to MOOC providers to focus e�orts on

upper-division courses.

56 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE?

The student transcript may shift from measuring achievement in Carnegie credit hours to instead recording competency-based accomplishments.

The university structure itself could dramatically shift; lower level universities

might become facilitators for online courses, hiring instructors skilled in

education facilitation rather than research.

56 MOVING FORWARD, HOW WILL UNIVERSITIES CHANGE?

7

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO?

UniversitiesResearch must be done to evaluate the

e�ectiveness and future of MOOCs.

Universities are running pilot programs with

MOOC providers with select classes to test

their feasibility, such as San Jose State

University’s Udacity math classes. SJSU is

currently o�ering 3 classes for credit, open to

anyone. Beginning June 1, Edx will be available

as an open source learning platform. Stanford

will integrate features of its existing Class2Go

open source online learning platform into the

edX platform.

57 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY? WHAT CAN YOU DO?

MOOC ProvidersThe companies themselves are collecting

data on every interaction they have with

students. The researchers behind each

provider hope to use that data to support

the argument in favor of the expansion of

MOOCs. Coursera is using the data

collected from the thousands of students in

its 30+ classes to study the most e�ective

teaching methods.

57 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY?

GovernmentThe California State Senate is currently

considering a bill (SB520) that, if passed, would

force state universities to teach lower division

classes as MOOCs.

57 WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY?

The field of higher education will see massive and constant

change in the near future, and MOOCs will continue to play a

major role in its rapid evolution. How will YOU play a part in the

revolution of learning?

Read more: http://www.stanford.edu/studenta�airs/registrar/moocs

Conclusion

SOURCESDistance Learning

Von V. Pittman, "Correspondence Study in the American University: A Second Historiographical Perspective, in Michael Grahame Moore,

William G. Anderson, eds. Handbook of Distance Education pp 21-36 (Correspondence Courses)

Levering Tyson, "Ten Years of Educational Broadcasting," School and Society (1936) 44:225-31 (Radio)

Enter MOOCs

http://davecormier.com/edblog/2008/10/02/the-cck08-mooc-connectivism-course-14-way/ (coining MOOC)

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eli7078.pdf (first MOOC course)

MOOC Companies

https://www.edx.org/about (edX why founded)

http://blog.coursera.org/post/40080531667/signaturetrack (Coursera Signature Track)

http://chronicle.com/article/A-First-for-Udacity-Transfer/134162/ (Udacity Revenue)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massive-open-online-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.html?smid=pl-share

(Udacity Profit Sharing)

What are People Saying?

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Professors-Behind-the-MOOC/137905 (Professors - Credit)

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/affirmative-action-innovation-and-financial-future-survey-presidents (Presidents)

What’s Happening Today?

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/april/edx-collaborate-platform-030313.html (Universities - edX)

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Bold-Move-Toward-MOOCs-Sends/137903/ (SB 520)

http://www.stanford.edu/studenta�airs/registrar/moocs

StanfordUniversity

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Thank you!

April, 2013

MOOCs - Amazon Web Services€¦ · driven by the rise of MOOCs, in the way higher education...

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