7 Things You Should Know About Moocs

What Are They?

A Massive Open Online Class, or MOOC, is an online course that offers open access via the Cyberspace for free or at a depression cost. Many MOOCs are modeled subsequently existing college or academy courses, but unlike these courses, virtually MOOCs do non count for college credit. There are some exceptions, however, with a few providers offering certificates of completion if students take proficiency exams, or partnering with more than traditional online programs to offering for-credit courses.

What else defines a MOOC? As their name suggests, many MOOCs have huge course sizes, with the largest on record topping out at over 300,000 students. Another important element of a MOOC is open licensing. This can apply not merely to the form itself, which offers open enrollment, but likewise to much of the content, structure, and resources employed past the class, allowing anyone, anywhere to sign upward and take the form.

How Do They Piece of work?

Anyone who wants to sign up for a MOOC tin and the majority of courses accept place asynchronously, allowing students to study when and where information technology's most convenient for them and likewise expanding accessibility to students anywhere in the world. Because they are free, information technology's not uncommon for students to sign up for merely not to consummate a MOOC—there are no penalties. Concurrent enrollment is as well common, equally students can sign up for as many MOOCs as they want, from equally many different providers as they want.

The content of MOOCs differs very lilliputian from traditional online courses but each MOOC is unique and the expect and feel of the MOOC volition often depend on the topic and instructor. Different online courses, however, the sheer size of MOOCs makes it impossible for instructors to respond to students individually and so students must rely on their own motivation to stay on track and on other classmates in a MOOC for help with homework, studying, and even evaluation.

What Are the Pros and Cons?

Depending on who you ask, MOOCs will exist praised every bit the next big transformative motion in education or brushed off every bit over-hyped and already on the decline. Where does the truth lie? As it generally does, somewhere in between. Hither's a look at some of the pros and cons of today's MOOCs.

The Pros: MOOCs make it possible for a large number of students to access educational opportunities at no or very low toll, democratizing access to education in an age when loftier college tuition makes attending school difficult for those without financial means. For those who are driven and can self-motivate, they can be an excellent style to refresh noesis, acquire new skills, or to but appoint in a topic of involvement on a about limitless array of topics.

The Cons: 1 of the biggest problems with MOOCs is failure of students to actually consummate them. A report by MIT and Harvard found that more than 95 percent of students dropped out of their MOOC before the session was over, a rate that's about unheard of in traditional online education. Why the mass exodus from the courses? The virtually commonly cited reason is a lack of live teacher engagement, whether through grade give-and-take or through feedback on course assignments. While the end goal of many MOOCs is cognition, non a caste, stats testify that without teacher support, curiosity alone isn't enough to sustain most students.

What's the Next Decade Going to Look Like for Them?

The showtime MOOC was launched in 2008 as an experiment by ii Canadian educators. Since then, MOOCs have grown enormously, both in the number of students who take them and in multifariousness. Take Coursera for case, 1 of the improve known MOOC providers. In less than ii years, information technology enrolled more than than 1.7 million students and garnered partnerships with more than thirty elevation names in higher instruction, similar Princeton, Columbia, and Duke. To appointment, it has enrolled almost 12 million students.

It's non alone in the mad dash to cover MOOCs. Over the past seven years, Google has released a MOOC-edifice tool assuasive anyone to build a MOOC and numerous other large-scale providers accept emerged including Udacity and and edX, offering highly innovative and incredibly popular courses taught by educators at top universities from effectually the world.

Despite the rapid ascension in MOOCs, the format is still evolving and looking for ways to solve many of the problems that critics accept pointed to as major stumbling blocks. While many predicted that the MOOC would fizzle out, even as far back every bit 2012, the format is still going strong, though maybe non being the darling of higher education that it once was.

Over the next decade, MOOCs are likely to expect for means to better instructor engagement and to offer greater opportunities for credit and certification, though this may also mean that many MOOCs move from being free to requiring students to pay tuition. While their demise has been predicted most since their inception by the way'southward critics, it's likely that MOOCs will exist around for some time to come. While information technology'south unlikely that MOOCs will ever exist the game-changer they were initially touted to be, MOOCs will still accept an important office to play in the time to come of online education.

How Tin You Apply It?

There are a few major ways that these gratis, open courses can be of utilise to yous.

Exist a student. Curious about what a MOOC is really like? Sign up for one. Not merely volition y'all will acquire more well-nigh the format (disquisitional if you want to build your ain MOOC someday), but you'll get a chance to learn virtually a topic of interest at no cost to yous. It tin be a great way to do some professional development and engage with the online learning environs with no penalty, budgetary or otherwise, should you get as well decorated to complete information technology.

Utilise MOOCs to inform your own instruction. MOOCs take their pros and cons, both of which can exist used to assist y'all fine tune your ain arroyo to online educational activity and learning.

Develop your own MOOC. Desire to share your expertise and research with the world? MOOCs are ane style to do it. Launching a MOOC can be a lot of work, but because MOOCs are not for-credit, they are significantly easier to create than a traditional online course. Some MOOCs have been launched in conjunction with the publication of enquiry, or considering faculty members have cognition in fields that aren't e'er easy to find traditional courses in. Even better, MOOCs don't take to span an entire semester—some MOOCs are only comprised of a few shorter seminars than can span a few days or a few weeks. If you want to learn more about crafting a MOOC, visit Learning Technologies. We tin assist you to develop your course content, better empathize the intellectual property problems that may ascend, and detect the best forum for launching your form.

Keep Learning

There'due south a lot of information out there on MOOCs. These resources can assistance you to larn more and discover out where to take some exciting new complimentary, open online courses.

• What Campus Leaders Need to Know About MOOCs: This Educase briefing provides a cracking overview of MOOCs and highlights the key things educators demand to know near them.
• v Myths About MOOCs: Call back yous know what MOOCs are all near? This article from Times Higher Pedagogy in the UK dispels some of the nigh common myths well-nigh these online courses.
• MOOCs 101: In this video, y'all can learn more about the basics of MOOCs.
• MOOC List: This site makes it piece of cake to search or browse through MOOCs from all of the major providers.

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Source: https://www.codlearningtech.org/2015/11/23/5-questions-what-you-need-to-know-about-moocs/

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