Talk at UNESCO Chair in E-Learning Round Table, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona June 2013

1. Terry Anderson,
Professor,
Centre for Distance Education
Feb. 2013
Openness, Online Universities,
Moocs and Beyond
UNESCO Chair in E-Learning
Round Table

2. Drivers for Openness
• Drivers for Openness
– Open Scholarship
– Experimentation, extensive use of ICT for competitive and learning
advantage
– Enhanced social and community service
– Recession and the continuing escalation of costs of higher education
• Pedagogy of MOOCs
– cMOOCs and Connectivism
– XMOOCs and instructivism
– sMOOCs social constructivism
• My MOOC recommendations
– Credit for learning- anywhere/anyhow
– MOOCs as movie trailer
– “First One Free” Marketing

3. Definitions of Open on the Web
(From Google)
• affording unobstructed entrance and exit; not shut or
closed;
• affording free passage or access;
• open to or in view of all;
• accessible to all;
• assailable: not defended or capable of being defended
• loose: (of textures) full of small openings or gaps;
• start to operate or function
• not brought to a conclusion;
• not sealed or having been unsealed

4. Open
• Ouvert – as in open door and no prerequisites
• Gratis – as in no tuition fees
• Libre – as in Free speech, ability to use, re-use,
remix
In what sense is UOC OPEN??

5. Openness
• A compelling sociological, psychological, legal
and technological movement.

7. OER Developments at our institutions

8. • From Open Educational Resources to a culture
of use and production of OERs
• EU Project POERUP (Policies for OER
Uptake)policies of government and major
institutional initiatives on OERs
• New private sector entrants – Pearson’s –
resources, plus recommenders, plus data
mining

9. Education technology
• Marginalized use
• Resistance by teachers, students
• Frustrations with past failures, and dashed
expectations
• BUT Increasing capacity, new
affordances, increased usage in all aspects of
networked society

10. Education was Based on
Old Models of Scarcity
P. Banbury 2009

11. Ed Tech Today
• Mr Google in every pocket
• Blended Classroom
– Blending best of classroom and online
• Online Courses from most universities
– Access , Time and Place shifting
• Flipped Classroom
– Content acquisition alone, at home
– Learning objects, Khan Academy, Itune University
– Classroom for collaboration
• Simulations, Massive Games, viral social networks

12. Enhanced Community Service
Expectation
• Increased expectations
– Degree inflation
– Lifelong learning mandate
– 21st Century skills
– Too high tuition fees (at least in North America)
– Value for taxpayer?

13. But What about MOOCs??

14. Dave Cormier’s What is a MOOC?

15. • All MOOCs are not the Same!!

16. MOOC Common Features
• Mooc is a course
• Defined Curriculum or content?
• “Big Data”mining potential
• Substitute student-content and perhaps student-
student for student-teacher interaction
• Maybe asynchronous, synchronous, mixed
• Paced or self-paced
• Up-sell of auxiliary products
• Emerging credential options
» Invigilated exams, badges, private certification

17. cMOOCs (Connectivism)
• Content as a starting point, learners expected to expand
and amplify through their own creations and connections
• Chaotic and emergent – ”course with no centre”
• Role of Learner: “Learners expected to create, grow, expand
domain and share personal sense making through artifact
construction” George Siemens
• Role of teacher: “Rather, what we are saying through this
structure is that we, the course authors, will be studying these
materials. And people are welcome to come along for the
ride.” Downes
• “derived from a theory of learning based on engagement
and interaction within a community of
practitioners, without predetermined outcomes, and
without a body of knowledge that we can simply ‘transfer’
to the learner.” Stephen Downes

18. Downes/Siemens cMOOC model

19. Downe’s Design for cMOOcs
• Aggregation – from list of all possible and
resources, participants choose their own
learning objects
• ReMix – Participants translate new
information into relevant contexts
• Repurpose the work of other participants
• Feedforward, archive in digital and open
formats for others to benefit
http://halfanhour.blogspot.com.es/2013/05/m
ooc-resurgence-of-community-in-online.html

20. 20
Connectivist freedoms
• Location
where?
• Subject
what?
• Time
when?
• Approach
how(pedagogy, process
)?
• Pace
how fast?
• Sociability
with whom (if
anyone)?
• Technology
using what
(medium/tools)?
• Delegability
to authorize
responsibility to
another
setnet
group
notional levels of choice once a typical ‘course’ is in progress

21. cMOOCs conclusions
• Revolutionary, not evolutionary
• Redefine role of teachers, learners and
education institutions
• Too disruptive for teachers, students or
governments??

22. xMOOCs
• Traditional Teaching model (1st generation
instructivist pedagogy)
• Canned video and computer marked quizzes
and essays replacing student-teacher
interaction

24. MOOC Participation Rates??
• Coursera Course Computational
Investing, January 6, 2013 by Tucker Balch ,
• 53,265 enrolled
• Completed the course:
– 4.8% of those who enrolled
– 18% of those who took a quiz.
– 39% of those who submitted the first project.
Duke University 33% registered students never logged on!

25. • “The students who drop out early
do not add substantially to the
cost of delivering the course”. The
most expensive students are the
ones who stick around long
enough to take the final, and those
are the ones most likely to pay for
a certificate. Daphne
Koller, Founder Coursera

26. • MOOCs substitute student-content interaction
and in some cases student-student interaction
for expensive student-teacher interaction.

27. The Interaction Equivalency Theorem
Anderson (2003)
• Thesis 1. Deep and meaningful formal learning is supported
as long as one of the three forms of interaction (student–
teacher; student–student; student–content) is at a high
level. The other two may be offered at minimal levels, or even
eliminated, without degrading the educational experience.
• Thesis 2. High levels of more than one of these three
modes will likely provide a more satisfying educational
experience, although these experiences may not be as
cost- or time effective as less interactive learning
sequences.
Seehttp://equivalencytheorem.info/ 27

28. 28
Instructivist freedoms
• Location
where?
• Subject
what?
• Time
when?
• Approach
how(pedagogy, process
)?
• Pace
how fast?
• Sociability
with whom (if
anyone)?
• Technology
using what
(medium/tools)?
• Delegability
choosing to choose
setnet
group
From Dron, J. &Anderson, T. (2012) Keynote Networked Learning Conference

29. Social MOOC (sMOOCs)
• Use of social networks to:
– enhance student-student interactions
• MeetUps,
• Google Hangouts,
• SecondLife,
• recommendation systems
– Enhance student-teacher interactions
• Recommendation systems
• Asynchronus voice and video
• Learning analytic feedback

30. 30
Social constructivist freedoms
• Location
where?
• Subject
what?
• Time
when?
• Approach
how(pedagogy, process
)?
• Pace
how fast?
• Sociability
with whom (if
anyone)?
• Technology
using what
(medium/tools)?
• Delegability
choosing to choose
setnet
group
notional levels of choice once a typical course is in progress

31. xMOOCs cMOOCs UOC Educ
Model
Pedagogy instructivist connectivist constructivist
Social
Structure
individual network group
Delegatability high low medium
Length Varies varies fixed
Focus Content Process learner
Anderson, T., &Dron, J. (2011). RevistaTecnologíapara el aprendizaje a través de
tresgeneraciones de pedagogía a distanciamediadaportecnología. Mexicana de Bachillerato a
Distancia, 6. Retrieved from
http://bdistancia.ecoesad.org.mx/contenido/numeros/numero6/visionInter_01.html.

32. xMOOCs UOC
Accessibility 3 2
High Quality Content 2 2
Teaches Network literacy 2 3
Time Management 1 3
Content based on student context 1 3
Cooperation, internationalization 1 2
Cost to student 3 2
Accreditation 1 3
Rigorous, critical reflective work 2 3
Teacher, Mentor interaction and
Assessment
1 3
Student and teacher use of &
control of data
2 1

33. MOOC challenges to Online University
• Undercuts student costs
• New online alternatives
• Super star professor
• Challenges the value of student-teacher and
student-content interaction
• Reduces value of degree accreditation
• Pressure to credential external learning

34. My Own recommendations:
Enhanced assessment of open learning acquired
anytime/anywhere
• University of London since 1858
• Huge demand for authentication and certification
of knowledge
• Meets integration and mobility goals of EU
• Unique opportunity for UOC
• Pioneered by WGU, North Dakota State,
Athabasca and others.
• Remote invigilation needed anyways
• Whole new market for UOC

35. Recommendations (cont.)
• MOOCs as social service
– Targeting particular social or government needs
– Demonstrating expertise and value add of modern
university
Ned Corbett – Man with the magic lantern, U of Alberta

36. MOOCs as Open Educational
Resources (OERs)
• Very useful for remedial or exploration by
registered students
• Allows more student control of pacing than
traditional course
• Decrease in length of CourseraMOOCs

37. Recommendations:
MOOCs as exposure to online learning
• Am I ready for University?
• First unit of EVERY course as a MOOC??
• How good are our courses??

38. • Prof. Renner: "MOOCs may well be the
last stand in defense of academic freedom
if knowledge is to increasingly belong in
the public domain, and not increasingly
become a commodity. ……We must own
and use MOOCs to elevate general public
knowledge to be an effective civic
moderator of wealth, power and belief.

39. • Slides on SlideShare:
• https://landing.athabascau.ca
• terrya@athabascau.ca
• Terrya.edublogs.org