SEEC, (a consortia of universities with experience and expertise with recognising learning through academic credit in non-traditional contexts) have regular Networks of Practice meetings for members. These slides are what I plan to use to get the debate off to a lively start.

1. When Content is Cheaper
than Chips
What happens to credit?
Image courtesy of artemisphoto, FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Network of Practice lunchtime presentation Friday 4th October 2013
Mary Karpel

2. “There are two basic
options the way I see
it: fundamentally
change the way
higher education is
delivered, or resign
ourselves to never
having enough of it”

3. MOOCs and Open Education
A tangled relationship

5. cMOOCs: the connectivist MOOC. Based on a
connectivism theory of learning with networks
developed informally;
xMOOCs: the content-based MOOC which follows
a more behaviourist approach.
Emphasise connected, collaborative learning and
courses are built around a group of like-minded
‘individuals’ who are relatively free from institutional
constraints. Provides a platform to explore new
pedagogies beyond traditional classroom settings
and, as such, tend to exist on the radical fringe of HE.
An instructional model, essentially an extension of
the pedagogical models practised within the
institutions themselves, which is arguably
dominated by the “drill and grill” instructional
methods with video presentations, short quizzes
and testing
profit and non-profit
MOOCs

6. Coursera is an education company that partners with the top
universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online
for anyone to take, for free. Our technology enables our partners
to teach millions of students rather than hundreds

7. Open Education Alliance

10. Private company owned by the OU created December
2012
UK’s first provider of MOOCs.
Currently 26 partners and course providers: UK and
international universities and cultural institutions
including the British Library, British Museum and British
Council.

11. Initiative For Profit Free to Access Certification Fee Institutional
Credits
Coursera √ √ √ √ x
Udacity √ √ √ √ x
edX x √ √ x
P2PU x √ x x
KEY
X Not a feature
√ Feature Present
√X Features partially present
Differences between initiatives

12. Open?
Cable Green, global education director of Creative Commons
“Free is free, but open is free plus
legal rights to reuse, revise, remix
and redistribute the resources”

13. Open Education Resource
University
a virtual collaboration of like-minded
institutions committed to creating
flexible pathways for OER learners to
gain formal academic credit.

15. Coordinate assessment and
credentialising services on a cost
recovery basis for participating
education institutions to ensure
credible qualifications and
corresponding course articulation
among anchor partners.

18. UKOER programme
2009 -10 Jisc and the HE Academy commenced the first, pilot
phase, of the UKOER programme. Funded by HEFCE it explored
issues associated with OER release. More than 80 UK universities
were involved.
2010-2011 phase 2 began to explore the discovery and use of
open educational resources, specifically by academics.
2011-2012 final phase, turned its attention to the use of OER
approaches in the pursuit of particular strategic, policy and
societal goals.

19. POERUP aims to study the end-user–producer communities
behind OER initiatives. By comparing in-depth European case-
studies to selected non-European ones we will refine and
elaborate recommendations to formulate a set of action points
that can be applied to ensuring the realisation of
successful, lively and sustainable OER communities.

21. • Building and linking communities
of open practice
• MOOCs and open courses
• Academic practice, development
and pedagogy
• Open policy, research, scholarship
and access
• Students as users and co-creators

22. The hard bit though will be how the
institutions provide the assessment to
enable students to get an accredited
degree, and whether such a degree or
qualification will be accepted by national
accreditation or degree assessment
boards. Tony Bates

23. Many job descriptions include a requirement like
“BA or BS in EE/CS/CE or equivalent experience.”
We want to create a collection of badges that a
top employer, like Google, will publicly recognize
as “equivalent experience.” •This goes straight
for the jugular, demonstrating that badges are a
viable alternative to formal university education.
David Wiley

24. a new online standard to recognize
and verify learning

25. "learning looks very different today than
traditionally imagined. Legitimate and interest-
driven learning is occurring through a multitude
of channels outside of formal education, and yet
much of that learning does not "count" in
today's world. There is no real way to
demonstrate that learning and transfer it across
contexts or use it for real results,“
Mozilla's Erin Knight

26. it does require every badge to
provide authentication for the
organization issuing the badge
and for the user receiving it, as
well as a link to the criteria
needed to earn it and the
evidence of the learner meeting
that criteria

28. A Disaggregated Future for HE?
Can we expect to see higher education
institutions making difficult choices
around focusing on developing truly
world-class expertise in one or two of
their functions and outsourcing the
others?

29. A fully accredited university that offers no courses whatsoever; instead, it
has chosen to focus on assessing learning and awarding degrees. It refers
students to partner institutions when they need to take a formal course or
to access library collections before taking their exams.

31. University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s first non-
profit, tuition-free, degree-granting online academic institution
dedicated to opening access to higher education globally for all
qualified individuals, despite financial, geographic or societal
constraints.
Founded in 2009 to date, more than 1500 students from 137
countries have been admitted.

32. “Credit does not appear to be a major
motivation for learners who have chosen
MOOCs so far; however, there are clear signs
that this will change.
“The burning issues for MOOCs are the exploration of
a viable business model and the accreditation of
MOOC learning.”
“For the time being, discussion of the models for assessing learning, which would be
essential to credentialed outcomes, is not highly developed. However, some new potential
methods, specific to MOOC technology, are starting to emerge.”
September 2013
A survey of MOOC and ODL literature which aims to
capture the state of knowledge and opinion about
MOOCs and ODL, how they are evolving, and to identify
issues that are important, whether consensual or
controversial.

33. Title: MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education
Authors: Li Yuan (CETIS), Stephen Powell (CETIS)
Date: March 2013
URI: http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2013/667
Text
David Wiley and John Hilton III
Brigham Young University, USA
November – 2009
Openness, Dynamic Specialization, and the Disaggregated Future of Higher
Education
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning Vol 10 no 5
BIS Research Paper No 130
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/syst
em/uploads/attachment_data/file/240193/13-
1173-maturing-of-the-mooc.pdf