Open Learning in Higher EducationMassively Open Online Courses, ppt presented at CSUED2012, Wagga Wagga, Australia, 6th Nov 2012

1. Open Learning in Higher Education
Massively Open Online Courses
Associate Professor Barney Dalgarno
Sub Dean Learning and Teaching
Faculty of Education

2. Origins
 MOOCs -
Massively Open
Online Courses -
coined in 2008
 Connectivist ideas
George Siemens,
Stephen Downes

3. More recently
 2011-2012
 High profile
experiments
involving leading
US Universities

4. Venture capital funded startups

5. Major examples
 Late 2011 Artificial Intelligence MOOC -
Stanford University - 160,000 students
 Stanford spin off Udacity - courses in
Physics, Statistics, Computer Science...
 2012 Coursera – partners include
Stanford, Duke ... Melbourne
100+ courses in Finance, Sustainability...
 2012 edX with Harvard, MIT, Berkeley...
courses in Chemistry, Electronics...

6. Completion and credit
 Very low completion rates (lots of tasters)
 Certificate of attainment not accreditation
 Antioch University now using Coursera for
resources and charging students for credit
and support
 Colorado State allowing credit to students
completing a Udacity course after they pay
to sit an exam

7. What people are saying
 Simon Marginson
Univerity of Melbourne:
[MOOCs] will be the
game changer in higher
education worldwide.
Right now [they are]
reverberating through
the world’s universities
like a tectonic shock.

8. What people are saying
Ian Young VC ANU: The only
reason MOOCs have managed to
attract hundreds of thousands of
students to individual courses is
because they are being offered by
ivy league universities Harvard,
Stanford and MIT ... The likelihood
of these universities ever offering
accredited degrees via MOOC
providers for free or at a low cost
is questionable.

9. Business models
 Can money be made by offering free
courses? Are there other benefits?
 Access for disadvantaged students?
Profile?
Subscriber database?
Evolution to free/enhanced versions?
Packaged offerings for other
institutions?

10. Pedagogical models
 Resources: video, animated
presentations, readings, outside links
 Feedback: Peer and/or automated
and/or pre-prepared
 Connectivist philosophies not really
evident in highly publicised examples

11. Implications for CSU
 Unbundling the elements of our product
 If the content is free will students pay
for the rest?
 Support? Feedback? The campus
experience? Accreditation?
 Why might we consider a MOOC?
 Course promotion? Try before you buy?
Transition strategies?