Dear Commons Community,

If you get a chance, please check out my article just published by University Outlook, entitled “The hype, the backlash, and the future of MOOCs”.  In it, I try to provide a balanced treatment of where MOOC technology fits into the overall scheme of online learning and speculate about its future.  MOOCs have much to offer but their purveyors need to tone down the hype and stop treating them as a solution to all the issues in higher education.   Here is an excerpt:

“Speculating about the future is always a risk, however, it is desirable for trying to understand what MOOCs can contribute for the betterment of education.  Without a doubt, MOOCs have presented possibilities of scale that need to be evaluated and considered by faculty, administrators, and policymakers.  MOOC providers also have capital and resources that can be put to good use if invested wisely.  Some thoughts.

First, the founders of MOOC companies and their investors need to tone down their own hype  and stop trying to sell their products as if they will resolve all of education’s problems. For example, should the MOOC approach really be designed for students who have remediation and other learning needs and who lack the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Daphne Kollner, founder of Coursera, recently commented at the Sloan Consortium Annual Conference that such students would probably better be served by face-to-face instruction. (Kollner, November 2013)

Second, with the substantial financial resources at their disposal, MOOC companies should develop more pedagogically sound course materials that can be used in blended online formats rather than fully online formats.  In fact the future of MOOCs, might indeed lie with blended learning that allows for the meaningful involvement of faculty.   To do so, they may have to even jettison the MOOC brand because their final products may not be massive in terms of hundreds of thousands of student enrollments and may not be open or free.  Rather than course providers and developers, they might rebrand themselves more as providers of high-quality content giving faculty the option as to how to best use their materials.

Third, as private enterprises, MOOC developers need to figure out a way to return their investments and make a profit.  The past fifty years of instructional software providers are littered with hundreds of companies that have went bankrupt.   As some point, the initial capital will run out and these companies need to generate revenue.  It is likely that some will succeed but some will not. This is a major conundrum for MOOC developers that distinguishes them from faculty and instructional design competitors at colleges who develop their own online courses and materials on modest budgets primarily for pedagogical reasons and not with the intent to turn a profit.   It might be that MOOC providers can concentrate on developing and providing courseware targeted for certain disciplines and subject matter that can benefit from enriched content.  It might be that they can concentrate on specific student populations such as the adult and continuing education market.  It might be that MOOCs can be used as recruitment tools for students in colleges or for employees in private industry especially those interested in serving and working with global populations.

There are a number of possibilities but the MOOC developers know best their resources and should study their markets carefully to determine where they can provide a valuable service or product.  If they nurture these markets and deliver the best products they can, they will secure their future.”

Tony