MOOCs — Massive Open Online Courses

Reflections on “TVs are becoming the next app battleground” [Adler]

On 03/01/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Australia, Bring your own device (BYOD), changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, convergence, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, global / globalization, India, informal learning, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, interactivity, internet, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, media/film, mobile learning, mobile technologies, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, motivation, multimedia, Near Field Communication (NFC), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, participation, personalized/customized learning, platforms, second screen apps, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, social media, streams of content, student-related, technologies for your home, television, by Daniel Christian

TVs are becoming the next app battleground — from by Emily Adler

Excerpt:

The app store phenomenon, centered on smartphones and tablets, has been the biggest story in software for the past five years.

Its next logical destination: the living room, via smart TVs and set-top boxes connected to the Internet.

…

The smart TV app revolution is inevitable: People spend four hours in front of their TVs in the U.S., and 63% of all global ad spending goes to TVs. The old guard, represented by cable and entertainment conglomerates, will not be able to fend off improvements like those that apps are bringing to mobile phones.
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The smart TV revolution will not just be led by new TVs with built-in Internet connections, it will also result from consumer adoption of less expensive game consoles or set-top boxes like Roku and Apple TV, which transform traditional TVs into smart TVs with access to app stores. At least 20% of U.S. consumers already have their TVs connected in one of these ways.

From DSC:

Keep an eye on the convergence of the telephone, the television, and the computer.
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Start thinking of ways that you could provide learning/educationally-based experiences with second screen apps. What would that experience look and act like?
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If such “channels” come to fruition — and happen to coincide with MOOCs and advances in cognitive computing (such as IBM’s Watson) — the word disruption comes to mind.
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The trick, then, will be to offer streams of content that are relevant, and up-to-date.
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Such a platform could be used in learning hubs throughout the world, as well as in hybrid/blended classrooms — while also addressing lifelong learners from their living rooms.
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Such a platform could take Communities of Practice to an entirely new level.

Addendum/also see:

Some solid articles/information in the Feb 2014 University Outlook magazine

On 02/22/2014, in change, changing business models, future of higher education, game-changing environment, global / globalization, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, social learning / networks, social media, trends, by Daniel Christian

February 2014 | Vol. 2, No. 1
http://universityoutlook.uberflip.com/i/260407

Reflections on “Online courses trim billions in personnel training” [Lee]

On 02/17/2014, in business, collaboration, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, higher education, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, training / L&D, workplace, by Daniel Christian

Online courses trim billions in personnel training — from cnbc.com by Ellen Lee

Excerpt:

Massive online open courses (MOOCs) are supposed to change the face of higher education. Early success, though, has been easier to find among corporations.

A University of Pennsylvania survey released late last year found that few students made it past the first online lecture. That’s been a constant criticism of MOOCs from educators: There’s a lack of proof that they work as well as traditional classroom methods. San Jose State University suspended a program it had initiated with MOOC provider Udacity after poor early results.

These stumbles in the education sector haven’t stopped corporations from finding a compelling reason to embrace MOOCs: Online courses trim a bill that runs to $130 billion annually for job training and certification, according to a report by Bersin, a unit of Deloitte Consulting.

From DSC:
With the half lives of content shrinking, those organizations who are nimble, responsive to market demands, and can build/integrate new streams of content into their product offerings should prove to be successful. For example, if knowledge of 3D printing or big data is required, those organizations who can respond quickly to provide this information should do pretty well. If organizations like Coursera or Udacity can provide such content quicker, they could be the go-to players in the future — especially for lifelong learners.

Lastly, this article is a great example of why higher education & the corporate world should pay closer attention to what’s happening in each others’ worlds.

The connected TV landscape: Why smart TVs and streaming gadgets are conquering the living room

On 02/07/2014, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bring your own device (BYOD), business side of he, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, collaboration, communications, communities of practice, convergence, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, disruption, distance education, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, experimentation, game-changing environment, global / globalization, heutagogy, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), hybrid learning, ideas, innovation, intelligent systems, intelligent tutoring, K-12 related, learner profiles, learning agents, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, personalized/customized learning, second screen apps, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, streams of content, technologies for your home, telepresence, television, training / L&D, transmedia, trends, user experience (UX), videoconferencing, virtual field trips, virtual K-12 schools, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

The connected TV landscape: Why smart TVs and streaming gadgets are conquering the living room — from businessinsider.com.au by Mark Hoelzel

In the connected TV world, an app is analogous to a TV channel.

Some key points:

In total, there will be more than 759 million televisions connected to the Internet worldwide by 2018, more than doubling from 307.4 million at year-end 2013.
Globally, shipments of smart TVs will reach a tipping point in 2015, when they will overtake shipments of traditional TVs.
Two tendencies dominate the connected TV ecosystem: closed and open approaches.
Despite platform fragmentation, HTML5 offers at least a faint hope for increased unification between connected TVs, just as it does on mobile.
How will developers and operating system operators monetise smart TV apps? Media downloads, subscriptions and — to a much lesser degree — advertisements will drive the dollars. Smart TV platform operators have begun experimenting with ads.

From DSC:
If in a connected TV world, an app is analogous to a TV channel…then I say let’s bring on the educationally-related, interactive, multimedia-based apps!

Texas Rolls Out an ‘Affordable Baccalaureate’ Degree, a For-Profit U will accept MOOC credits, & other HE-related items

On 02/05/2014, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, business side of he, change, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, by Daniel Christian

Texas Rolls Out an ‘Affordable Baccalaureate’ Degree — from chronicle.com by Lawrence Biemiller

Excerpt:

Two years after Gov. Rick Perry of Texas called on the state’s colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees that would cost students no more than $10,000 each, two institutions rolled out a joint bachelor-of-applied-science program last month that they say can be completed in three years for not much more than the governor’s target amount.

QuickWire: For-Profit University Will Accept MOOC Credits — from chronicle.com

Excerpt:

Bridgepoint Education’s Ashford University, which offers courses both online and on a campus in Clinton, Iowa, said on Friday that it would allow students to earn credits toward degrees by taking “selected” massive open online courses offered through two of the three big online-course providers, Coursera and Udacity.

Administrator Hiring Drove 28% Boom in Higher-Ed Work Force, Report Says — from chronicle.com by Scott Carlson

Excerpt:

Thirty-four pages of research, branded with a staid title and rife with complicated graphs, might not seem like a scintillating read, but there’s no doubt that a report released on Wednesday will punch higher education’s hot buttons in a big way.

The report, “Labor Intensive or Labor Expensive: Changing Staffing and Compensation Patterns in Higher Education,” says that new administrative positions—particularly in student services—drove a 28-percent expansion of the higher-ed work force from 2000 to 2012. The report was released by the Delta Cost Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan social-science organization whose researchers analyze college finances.

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Also see:

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Somewhat-related postings:

How will education race the machines? — from bryanalexander.org by Bryan Alexander
What will the increasing automation of jobs mean for education?
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Putting machine testing to the test | Next-gen educ standards meet next-gen scoring methods, but with controversy. — from wfs.org by Randall Mayes

Robotic testing? Artificial intelligence could speed up the grading of standardized tests, offering more-consistent and unbiased assessment of essays.

Thanks Elliott for your continued efforts to bridge higher education & the corporate world. It makes sense.

On 01/23/2014, in collaboration, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, workplace, by Daniel Christian

MOOCs & Corporate Learning: Symposium and LAB
learningmoocs.com

ElliottMasie-MOOCsLabSymposium-April-2014

From DSC:
The corporate world and the world of higher education have much to offer each other. We have an impact on each other and I, for one, welcome this sort of collaboration. I sometimes wonder if the corporate world should write the learning objectives that would guide what content and learning activities are in the undergraduate/graduate students’ courses.

Coursera comes of age, announces Specializations [Lapowsky]

On 01/21/2014, in business side of he, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, dangers of the status quo, disruption, innovation, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, vendors, by Daniel Christian

Coursera comes of age, announces Specializations — from inc.com by Issie Lapowsky
With a new feature that resembles the college major, Coursera gets a new revenue stream–and becomes an increasingly attractive education alternative.

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Coursera, the Mountain View, California-based provider of free, massively open online courses, or MOOCs, is launching a new feature called Specializations, the MOOC equivalent of majors. Rather than taking one isolated course for free, students can now select a sequence of courses, which they take in order, for a fee, albeit, a small one. Then, if they pass, students receive a certificate of completion.

“We heard from many students that they wanted help sequencing together courses in order to form more substantive programs of study than can be represented by a single course. On the flip side, we also heard significant interest from our university partners in offering course sequences,” Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng told me by email. “After discussions with our partners and several student surveys, we decided to proceed with this program, which we believe is the next stage in the development of MOOCs.”

…

Meanwhile, Specializations solve an equally big pain point for Coursera, namely that revenue’s hard to come by when you’re giving a premium product away for free. This way, students will sign up to get their identities verified, a service for which Coursera charges for each class, meaning Specializations will run students about $200 to $500. It’s substantially cheaper than a degree from a traditional university, and for those who can’t afford it, true to its mission, Coursera is offering students financial aid.

Also see:

Coursera Specializations: Focused Programs in Popular Fields — from blog.coursera.org

This vision is now reality.

Addendums on 1/22/14:

Georgia Tech MOOC-Based Degree Program Turns Away Nearly 2,000 Applicants — from campustechnology.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

A totally MOOC-based master’s degree in computer science announced last spring has opened for business with about 375 students. The new program, being delivered by Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing, claims to be the “first and only” one from an accredited university that operates entirely through a massive open online course format.

The degree program received 2,360 applications during a three-week period in October, about 75 percent more applications than are typically received for the on-campus program during an entire year. Of those, 401 students were offered admission, and 94 percent enrolled for the Spring 2014 semester. According to Georgia Tech, a couple of differences distinguish MOOC enrollment from on-campus enrollment. Whereas 88 percent of the MOOC students are United States citizens or permanent residents, about 90 percent are international in the on-campus program. Also, the average age of the MOOC students is 34.8, about 11 years older than their on-campus counterparts.

More Competition for Online Certificate Students — from insidehighered.com by Carl Straumsheim

Excerpt:

An online course provider will this spring introduce bundles of courses created by top-tier universities that can be completed for certificates. That description fits both Academic Partnerships and Coursera, and both programs are called “Specializations.”

The similarities are more than mere coincidence, as the two companies have since last summer discussed a partnership proposed by Academic Partnerships for its platform to use Coursera’s university course offerings. Yet Coursera’s Specializations, announced Tuesday morning, took Academic Partnerships CEO Randy Best by surprise. When the parties spoke last week, Best said Coursera “expressed that they were going to defer for now the idea of Specializations.”

Reflections on “The Campus of the Future: Hybrid and Lean” [Winkler]

On 01/15/2014, in adjunct faculty, blended learning, change, changing business models, colleges, community colleges, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, cost of getting a degree, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, distance education, education technology, elearning, faculty, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, hybrid learning, IT in HE, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, online media, online tutoring, organizational change, reinvent, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, staying relevant, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, UK, United States, universities, videoconferencing, virtual tutoring, by Daniel Christian

The Campus of the Future: Hybrid and Lean — from edcetera.rafter.com by Kirsten Winkler

Excerpt:

When people imagine the campus of the future, two main ideas seem to come up. On the one hand, the campus experience will be blended or hybrid, meaning that even with the majority of learning taking place online, there will still be demand for activities in a classic brick-and-mortar setting. On the other hand, the campus of the future will be more like a technology startup, focused on cutting expenses and running a lean operation.

Three recent articles in Education DIVE, The Times Higher Education, Slate and Inc. underline this trend.

The above article links to:

Internet mentors could supplant traditional lecturers — from timeshighereducation.co.uk by Jack Grove
Horizon Scanning study points to a ‘new kind of pedagogy’ in higher education by 2020

Excerpt:

Traditional lecturers may soon be replaced by networks of online mentors working for several universities, a new study predicts.

In the report, titled Horizon Scanning: What will higher education look like in 2020?, the Observatory on Borderless Education suggests that academic staff are likely to be employed part-time by several universities – often working remotely via the internet – rather than relying on a single employer.

…

With one undergraduate module, Forms of Identity, already taught via video conferencing to students at both institutions, the alliance “may be pointing the way to a new kind of pedagogy”, the report says.

“Undergraduate lectures, for example, may be delivered simultaneously to any number of participating institutions, either across a whole sector or indeed across borders,” it states.

From DSC:
With adjunct faculty members playing a significant role at many institutions of higher education, I could see a scenario like this occurring. In fact, even years ago I knew an adjunct faculty member who sat behind her PC all day, servicing students at multiple universities. I’m sure that this is not a rare occurrence. Plus, we are already above 30% of the workforce working in a freelance mode, with estimations of this going to 40% or more by 2020.

Learning hubs: (how I define it)
Places of blended/hybrid learning whereby some of the content is “piped in” or made available via the Internet and whereby some of the content is discussed/worked on in a face-to-face manner.

Questions:

What if learning hubs spring up in many types of facilities, such as in schools, libraries, buildings on campuses, corporate spaces, parks, cafes, other places? How might such a trend affect the possible scenario that there will be online mentors working for several universities?
Will these mentors make enough to cover insurance costs, retirement costs, etc.?
Will this be a potential model for lifelong learning? For learning-on-demand?
How might MOOCs — and what they morph into — affect this type of scenario?
How might this scenario affect how we teach student teachers? (Will it involve more efforts/endeavors like this one?)
Could this type of scenario also happen in the corporate world?

Last comment:

I’m not saying that this sort of setup is better than a seminar-like experience that has a dozen or so students setting down with a highly-trained professor in a strictly face-to-face setting. However, that model is increasingly unobtainable/unaffordable for many people.

A handy cheatsheet on MOOCs [Medlock & Cusack]

On 01/15/2014, in experimentation, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, by Daniel Christian

A handy cheatsheet on MOOCs — from edsurge.com by Leonard Medlock and Alex Cusack

Excerpt:

XMOOC, cMOOC, BOOC, DOCC and SPOC — are you up to speed on all the different flavors of MOOCs? Alex Cusack from MOOCs.com has compiled this handy infographic to help you make sense of the alphabet soup along with major MOOC providers, trends, and student demographics.

From DSC:
What this infographic relays to me is that there’s a lot of experimentation going on but little coalescence around what a MOOC is. This may turn out to be a very good thing — as multiple options might become reality, providing more choice and more control to learners around the world.

George Siemens Gets Connected — from chronicle.com by Steve Kolowich

Excerpts (emphasis DSC):

He earned the most of his college credits at the University of Manitoba but also took courses from Briercrest College and Seminary, a Christian institution in Saskatchewan.

Through Briercrest, Mr. Siemens had his first experience with distance education: He took a Greek-language course that involved studying pronunciation from cassette tapes that came in the mail.
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When he was 28, he went on a religious retreat. “If you’re always moving away from something, you’ll be lost,” Mr. Siemens remembers a priest telling him. “Always be moving toward something.”
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The idea behind the first MOOC was not to make credentialing more efficient, says Mr. Siemens. It was to make online instruction dovetail with the way people actually learn and solve problems in the modern world. He and his colleagues wanted “to give learners the competence to interact with messy, ambiguous contexts,” he wrote, “and to collaboratively make sense of that space.”
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Education, then, is “a connection-forming process,” in which “we augment our capacity to know more” by adding nodes to our personal networks and learning how to use them properly.

From DSC:
This last sentence speaks to a significant piece of why I titled the name of this blog Learning Ecosystems. Such nodes can be people — such as parents, pastors, teachers, professors, coaches, mentors, authors, and others — as well as tools, technologies, schools, experiences, courses, etc. These ecosystems are fluid and different for each of us.

I’m also very glad to see George continuing to lead, to innovate, to experiment and for others to realize the value in supporting/encouraging those efforts. He is out to create the future.

Speaking of being out to create the future, I got involved with one of the experiments he led a while back called future learn: exploring innovation in education and learning. Though that experiment was later abandoned, it helped me crystallize a vision:

That vision has turned into:

So thanks George, for your willingness to encourage experimentation within higher education. Your efforts impacted me.

Finally, I’m glad to see the LORD continuing to bless you George and to work through you…to change the world.

Reflections on “MOOCs ain’t over” [Rhee-Weise]

On 01/09/2014, in 21st century, corporate / business world, Daniel S. Christian, disruption, higher education, innovation, learning ecosystem, lifelong learning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, vendors, workplace, by Daniel Christian

MOOCs ain’t over — from christenseninstitute.org by Michelle Rhee-Weise

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

Over the last month, journal headlines have been heralding the death of massive online open courses (MOOCs). You could almost hear the sigh of relief from the academy. With Sebastian Thrun himself acknowledging the “lousy” quality of the MOOC product, told-you-so skeptics have been giddily pointing out that Udacity, in its failure to disrupt higher education, is now moving on to vocational training.

Sadly, what audiences are missing is that Thrun’s shift to workforce training is precisely what has the potential to disrupt and severely impact traditional postsecondary education. We at the Christensen Institute have already written extensively about how MOOCs were not displaying the right markers for disruption (see here, here, here, and here), but we became more hopeful as they started to offer clusters of courses. Coursera announced Foundations of Business with Wharton, while edX and MITX introduced the Xseries in Computer Science as well as Supply Chain & Logistics. These moves appeared to map better to employer needs and what we describe as areas of nonconsumption. In their turn away from career-oriented training, colleges and universities have unwittingly left unattended a niche of nonconsumers—people over-served by traditional forms of higher education, underprepared for the workforce, and seeking lifelong learning pathways.

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Udacity’s most recent offering of a Big Data and Data Science track illustrates perfectly how the company is establishing its niche in the space that most traditional institutions have been avoiding.

…

If a company like Udacity can do a better job of attending to the skills gap and facilitate learning pathways for students that simultaneously build a strong pipeline of qualified candidates for companies, we will soon see that the creation of such programs to meet the demands of the labor market will put enormous pressure on our traditional institutions of higher education.

From DSC:
This is yet another article that illustrates some key points, at least in my mind:

Institutions of traditional higher education have a shrinking window of time to address employers’ needs. The workplace still looks to higher ed in many ways, but alternatives are popping up all the time now. Either higher ed reinvents itself to become more responsive, or we may find ourselves eventually being forced to find new employers.
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MOOCs are not done morphing — not even close. The experimentation will continue. The question is, who will be involved with these experiments?
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As we are now into lifelong learning, K-12, higher ed, and the corporate training departments will likely all be affected by MOOCs — the lines will likely continue to blur.

Design & Screen-Based Learning in Higher Education [Hampson]

On 01/03/2014, in design, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, online learning, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Design & Screen-Based Learning in Higher Education — from higheredmanagement.net by Keith Hampson

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

But the migration from the classroom to a screen-based environment is a change like no other. It’s a migration to a design-dependent environment. The digital learner’s experience is highly-dependent on the quality of design. The particular mix of colors, layout, audio, animation, words per page and other design elements can make the difference between a good and bad experience for learners on laptops, smartphones and tablets.

To date, digital higher education has largely ignored the role of design in online learning. It’s not part of the conversation. You’ll be lucky to find it discussed at conferences or in journals. This is partly because good design practices are not part of most institutions’ DNA. (Have you ever tried to find your way around an unfamiliar campus? Signage, anyone?). And partly because institutions often frame aesthetics and related matters as enemies of science.

Also see:

Don Norman on Creating Online Design Course — from blog.udacity.com

Excerpt:

Design, the discipline, is about the construction of interfaces that match the abilities and needs of people and technology in order to make products and services effective, understandable and pleasurable.

Design is also is about innovation, experimentation, about pushing the envelope of what can be done.

Deeper Learning 101 MOOC

On 01/03/2014, in 21st century, collaboration, communications, creativity, education reform, engagement / engaging students, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, learning theories, maker movement, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, online learning, professional development, teachers, teaching & learning, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
I originally saw this via a Scoop from Jim Lerman who pointed out the article:

Diving Into ‘Deeper Learning’ with High Tech High’s MOOC
One school network takes charge, offering a glimpse into innovate school models

Excerpt:

It combines the principles behind project-based learning, inquiry-based learning and Maker activities to give students more agency through collaboration, communicating, and thinking critically.

HTH Chief Academic Officer Ben Daley says, “Shallow learning is about racing to the textbook, trying to cover all the topics before the year rolls to an end. Deeper learning is about covering a smaller number of topics in a greater depth, making things, and presenting to a real audience.”

Over the course of nine weeks, the MOOC will offer a glimpse into how Deeper Learning is applied in schools like Expeditionary Learning, Big Picture Learning, Envision, and of course, High Tech High. Activities will include looking at student work from these schools, experiencing a “protocol” where teachers use a structured framework to guide a conversation, and a final project that will ask participants to design and implement their own deeper learning activity.

From DSC:
In briefly reviewing this endeavor, what I appreciated about these efforts was:

Giving more agency to the students — I took this to mean, “More choice. More control.” It seems to encourage student voice.
It encourages self-directed learning, something we all will need in our lifetimes — but does so in combination with other forms of learning that involve collaboration and communication (two other skills we all need)
It seems to have been a team-based approach – something I think will often be required to be successful in the future
The active, well-thought through experimentation going on; putting learning theories into practice in new ways that will hopefully connect with learners more and engage them at deeper levels

Also, slightly-related items 🙂

Standardized Achievement Tests: What Are They Good For? Hint: Not Cognitive Ability. — from blogs.scientificamerican.com by Scott Barry Kaufman
College course asks students to develop Google Glass apps as homework — from psfk.com by John Pugh

“What changed in higher education?” [Zinny]; also, “MOOCs in 2013: Breaking Down the Numbers” [Shah]

On 12/23/2013, in change, changing business models, cost of getting a degree, future of higher education, game-changing environment, higher education, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, more voice more choice more control, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new business models, online learning, open courseware and systems, by Daniel Christian

What changed in higher education? — from by Gabriel Sanchez Zinny

Excerpt:

Higher education is undergoing a number transformative changes, much as the banking, entertainment and travel industries have been doing in recent years. In those sectors, new technology and lower barriers to entry led to new players and increased competition.

The same forces are affecting education as well — but on an even more basic level. The entire model of the university is in the midst of a structural transformation. This is the argument of a recent report released by the experts at Pearson and the Institute for Public Policy Research, entitled “An Avalanche is Coming: Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead.”

In his Forward, the economist Larry Summers summarizes the nature of this avalanche, writing that:

A new phase of competitive intensity is emerging as the concept of the traditional university itself comes under pressure and the various functions it serves are unbundled and increasingly supplied, perhaps better, by providers that are not universities at all.

Also see:

MOOCs in 2013: Breaking Down the Numbers — from edsurge.com by Dhawal Shah
Teasing out trends among the unabated growth of online courses

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In November 2011 I was taking one of the first MOOCs from Stanford. At that time, many new MOOCs were being announced and I started Class Central as a way to keep track of them and figure out what I should take next. The website gathers course listings through provider sites, social media, and tips from MOOC providers and users. The figures below are based on these data.

200+ universities. 1200+ courses. 1300+ instructors. 10 million students.

For the first time in history, courses that were limited to a small number of students are now open to the entire world–or at least those with access to the Internet. These courses are known as “MOOCs” (Massive Open Online Courses), a term that has now become a part of our everyday vocabulary. (It was recently added to the Oxford Dictionary.) Over the past two years, MOOCs have been embroiled in controversy with regards to their efficacy and role in relation to traditional in-person university classes. And it’s still not clear whether they have a sustainable business model.
…
The most popular courses, based on clicks within Class Central…

Trends in 2014:

Credit-granting MOOCs

Corporate-developed public MOOCs

Broader access to MOOC creation

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Online courses trim billions in personnel training” [Lee]

Thanks Elliott for your continued efforts to bridge higher education & the corporate world. It makes sense.

Coursera comes of age, announces Specializations [Lapowsky]

A handy cheatsheet on MOOCs [Medlock & Cusack]

Reflections on “MOOCs ain’t over” [Rhee-Weise]

Design & Screen-Based Learning in Higher Education [Hampson]

“What changed in higher education?” [Zinny]; also, “MOOCs in 2013: Breaking Down the Numbers” [Shah]

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