In the Technology section of the The Chronicle of
Higher Education (1/9/13), there was an article entitled “What You Need to Know
About MOOC’s.” It neatly summarizes key
information about an important trend occurring in online education. I’ve
extracted the key elements below; they begin with the heading “What are MOOC’s?”
I’m currently enrolled in a MOOC called Introduction to Infographics and Data Visualization. It’s hosted by the
Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, located at the University of
Texas, Austin. The instructor is Alberto
Cairo. Among other credentials, Dr.
Cairo is the author The Functional Art, a college text on infographics.
Infographics
have been around a long time. I thought this course provided an opportunity to learn more about the field in a relatively painless way.
Positions of the Sun, Moon, and Planets Throughout the Year (Europe, 950 AD)
 |
| (taken from http://www.data-art.net/resources/history_of_vis.php) |
So how exactly
does a class function when there are thousands of students? One of my goals, as a student, is to find out. Several emails, sent in advance of the start
date, provided clear information and materials.
We were given .pdf files of two chapters of Dr. Cairo’s text as well as
a couple of other brief readings. We
were provided with access to the course web site (managed by Moodle) which
clearly lays out the week by week syllabus.
Expectations for the course were delineated. They include regular readings, two quizzes, a
creative project and participation in five discussions. Successful completion
will result in a certificate, but no credit. The course is free.
In looking
over the course site, I explored a number of links. Each link does not open to
a new tab, but simply reloaded the page to a fresh site. I found this
frustrating – the constant need to toggle back and forth between site – and wondered
if that setting could be changed. I noticed that Dr. Cairo had an assistant
specifically to handle technical difficulties associated with the site. The
assistant got back to me within 24 hours to address my concern. She
did not change the setting, but did offer a reasonable explanation as to
why. This is one way in which a professor can
teach a class with thousands of students.
I’ll be
talking more about my experience with this particular MOOC as the course
proceeds.
From The Chronicle of Higher Education article....
What are MOOC's?
MOOC's are classes that are taught
online to large numbers of students, with minimal involvement by professors.
Typically, students watch short video lectures and complete assignments that
are graded either by machines or by other students. That way a lone professor
can support a class with hundreds of thousands of participants.
Why
all the hype?
Advocates of MOOC's have big
ambitions, and that makes some college leaders nervous. They're especially
worried about having to compete with free courses from some of the world’s most
exclusive universities. Of course, we still don't know how much the courses
will change the education landscape, and there are plenty of skeptics.
These
are like OpenCourseWare projects, right?
Sort of. More than a decade ago, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology started a much-touted project called
OpenCourseWare, to make all of its course materials available free online. But
most of those are text-only: lecture notes and the like. Several colleges now
offer a few free courses in this way, but they typically haven't offered
assignments or any way for people who follow along to prove that they've
mastered the concepts. MOOC's attempt to add those elements.
So
if you take tests, do you get credit?
So far there aren't any colleges
that offer credit for their MOOC's. But some MOOC participants can buy or
receive certificates confirming their understanding of the material.
Who
are the major players?
Several start-up companies are
working with universities and professors to offer MOOC's. Meanwhile, some
colleges are starting their own efforts, and some individual professors are
offering their courses to the world. Right now four names are the ones to know:
A nonprofit effort run jointly by
MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley.
Leaders of the group say they intend
to slowly add other university partners over time. edX plans to freely give
away the software platform it is building to offer the free courses, so that
anyone can use it to run MOOC’s.
A for-profit company founded by two
computer-science professors from Stanford. The company’s model is to sign
contracts with colleges that agree to use the platform to offer free courses
and to get a percentage of any revenue. More than a dozen high-profile
institutions, including Princeton and the U. of Virginia, have joined.
Another for-profit company founded
by a Stanford computer-science professor. The company, which works with
individual professors rather than institutions, has attracted a range of
well-known scholars. Unlike other providers of MOOC’s, it has said it will
focus all of its courses on computer science and related fields.
A non-profit organization founded by
MIT and Harvard graduate Salman Khan. Khan Academy began in 2006 as an
online library of short instructional videos that Mr. Khan made for his
cousins. The library—which has received financial backing from the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation and Google, as well as from individuals—now hosts more
than 3,000 videos on YouTube. Khan Academy does not provide content from
universities, but it does offer automated practice exercises, and it recently
debuted a curriculum of computer science courses. Much of the content is geared
toward secondary-education students.
A for-profit platform that lets
anyone set up a course.
The company encourages its
instructors to charge a small fee, with the revenue split between instructor and
company. Authors themselves, more than a few of them with no academic
affiliation, teach many of the courses.
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