elearning_label_higher_education
MOOCs and disruptive innovation: Implications for higher education
The opportunity that Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) offer for cost effective massification of learning has generated significant interest from governments, higher education institutions (HEI) and commercial organisations. A growing number of HEI have been involved in experimenting with MOOCs for the purposes of expanding access, marketing and branding, as well as the potential of developing new revenue streams. The motivation for some MOOC providers is a philanthropic one and for others a business proposition. However, in both cases, there is the challenge of finding a viable business model that allows for sustainability of MOOC provision.
This paper will use the theory of disruptive innovation (Bower and Christensen, 1995) to examine MOOCs development and how their approach could be used to help institutions explore innovative approaches for teaching and learning and to develop new business models in order to gain competitive advantages in the education market. MOOCs provide institutions with a vehicle to think creatively and innovatively to explore new business models and flexible learning paths in HE provision. However, there is a need to rethink current higher education structures and policies and working practices that obstruct innovation. This includes funding arrangements and the ability to disaggregate teaching from assessment and accreditation for differential pricing and pursuit of marketing activities.
MOOC Design Principles. A Pedagogical Approach from the Learner’s Perspective
The debate around Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is much more focused on the social, institutional, technological and economical aspects than on the need for development of new pedagogical approaches that provide consistent guidance on how to design for this emergent educational scenario.
A new understanding of knowledge production and learning challenges the core of learning design, demanding innovative and appropriate approaches to teaching and learning. We present a set of learning design principles drawn from the learner’s perspective. They focus on empowering learners in networked environments for fostering critical thinking and collaboration, developing competence based outcomes, encouraging peer assistance and assessment through social appraisal, providing strategies and tools for self-regulation, and finally using a variety of media and ICTs to create and publish learning resources and outputs.
MOOCs and Beyond - eLearning Papers 33 released
Issue number 33 of eLearning Papers focuses on the challenges and future of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), a trend in education that has skyrocketed since 2008.
Guest edited by Dr Yishay Mor, Senior Lecturer at the Open University's Institute of Educational Technology (UK), and Tapio Koskinen, Director of the eLearning Papers Editorial Board, MOOCs and Beyond seeks to both generate debate and present a variety of perspectives about this new popular learning model.
The emergence of MOOCs poses a set of challenges to the educational community. This new special issue of eLearning Papers aims to shed light on the way these online courses affect both education institutions and learners, and tries to find answers to some of the questions confronted by teachers and researchers.
Among other topics, eLearning Papers 33 explores whether MOOCs may be a viable solution for education in developing countries and analyses the role of these emerging courses in the education system, especially in higher education. Furthermore, valuable examples from the field are presented, such as the quad-blogging concept and a game-based MOOC developed to promote entrepreneurship education.
This issue includes 4 In-Depth articles and 6 From the Field ones:
In-depth articles
- The Impact and Reach of MOOCs: A Developing Countries’ Perspective by Tharindu Liyanagunawardena, Shirley Williams and Andrew Adams
- MOOCs and disruptive innovation: Implications for higher education by Li Yuan and Stephen Powell
- The Next Game Changer: The Historical Antecedents of the MOOC Movement in Education by David T. Boven
- MOOC Design Principles. A Pedagogical Approach from the Learner’s Perspective by Lourdes Guàrdia, Marcelo Maina and Albert Sangrà
From the field articles
- MOOCs are More Social than You Believe by Jan Blom, Himanshu Verma, Nan Li, Afroditi Skevi and Pierre Dillenbourg
- Realising the Potential of Peer-to-Peer Learning: Taming a MOOC with Social Media by Emily Purser, Angela Towndrow and Ary Aranguiz
- Learning from Open Design: Running a Learning Design MOOC by Patrick McAndrew
- Quad-blogging: Promoting Peer-to- Peer Learning in a MOOC by Angela Towndrow, Ary Aranguiz, Emily Purser and Madhura Pradhan
- Game Based Learning MOOC. Promoting Entrepreneurship Education by Margarida Romero
- The AlphaMOOC: Building a Massive Open Online Course One Graduate Student at a Time by Carmen McCallum, Stephen Thomas and Julie C. Libarkin
The Next Game Changer: The Historical Antecedents of the MOOC Movement in Education
Though the history of massive open online courses is very short, scholars can gain insights by looking at similar movements in the past. This paper examines several historical moments in education to develop an understanding of MOOCs and their future.
Specifically, this paper explores two developments that resemble the discourse surrounding MOOCs—the emergence of studia particulare and generale in medieval Europe and the monitorial educational systems of the early nineteenth century. It also looks at several other educational innovations that have been seen as disruptive to the status quo of education. These include land-grant institutions in the United States in addition to the University Without Walls and open education movements of the 1960s and 1970s. These previous movements are very instructive as proponents of MOOC educational systems develop strategies for promoting MOOCs and giving them lasting resonance in the digital age.
Barcelona School of Civil Engineering Open CourseWare
Camins OpenCourseWare is an online platform offering free educational materials produced by the Barcelona School of Civil Engineering (ETSECCPB), an institution with one of the most outstanding research records in Spain and among the best European universities in terms of papers published.
The School now shares learning materials (including lecture notes, assignments, labs and exams) related to its Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering and Geological Engineering degrees and its Civil Engineering Master’s, all under a Creative Commons license.
The Impact and Reach of MOOCs: A Developing Countries’ Perspective
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a recent but hugely popular phenomenon in the online learning world. They are hailed by many as a solution for the developing world’s lack of access to education because MOOCs can provide learning opportunities to a massive number of learners from anywhere in the world as long as they can access the course through Internet.
However, a close consideration of the ability of learners from most developing countries to make use of MOOCs seems to contradict this rhetoric. This paper discusses features of MOOCs and looks at them from a developing countries’ perspective to conclude that due to a complicated set of conditions (‘access’, language, computer literacy among others) prevailing in developing countries, MOOCs may not be a viable solution for education for a large proportion of people in these areas of the world. The paper further shows the need for more data on the demographics of MOOC participants from developing countries to form a better understanding of MOOCs role in educating people from developing countries.
Guidelines for selecting research data
The report “Selection of Research Data; Guidelines for appraising and selecting research data” is the result of a short study conducted by two Dutch data centres: DANS and 3TU.Datacentrum.
Published in 2010, the report summarises the ‘state-of-the-art’ on the subject of research data, based on recent literature, a limited number of interviews with some key players in this field, and the lessons learned at the two data centres involved in the project.
The main deliverable of the document is a set of practical guidelines for appraising and selecting research data, intended for all those who are in a position to do so. The guidelines, in the form of a checklist, can be found in the Management Summary.
Commissioned by SURFfoundation, the report is part of the SURFshare programme, which aims to create a common infrastructure that will facilitate access to research information and make it possible for researchers to share scientific and scholarly information.
Learning from Open Design: Running a Learning Design MOOC
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) give an opportunity for providing access to subjects of mass interest but also allow more niche subjects (Beavon, Commas- Quinn, de los Arcos & Hauck, 2013) to reach a larger audience than the more usual context of small-scale post-graduate courses.
The OLDS-MOOC (Open Learning Design Studio-MOOC) is an example of such a course. Developed with funding from Jisc, in January 2013 a collaborative team from several universities presented a nine-week online course. The subject matter is learning design as an organised approach to online learning. This report considers the way in which the course was structured around as a project-based “pMOOC” in its approach to learning design, while also including alternative lighter routes. The impact it had on the team involved in developing and presenting the course is also briefly reviewed.
OpenStax College
OpenStax College is a non-profit organisation providing students with professional-quality textbooks that are free online and low-cost in print.
Launched in February 2012 with a philanthropic model, the platform ultimately plans to offer free textbooks for 25 of the most-attended college courses in the United States. The first five titles are already available and have been adopted in one year by more than 150 colleges, universities and high schools.
The books offered are developed and peer-reviewed by educators to ensure they are readable, accurate, and meet the scope and sequence requirements of the courses.
OpenStax College is an initiative of Rice University.
Vision in an Increasingly Mobile World
'Vision in an Increasingly Mobile World', an event organised by the British Machine Vision Association (BMVA), will be held on 15 May 2013 in London, UK.
Modern mobile computing creates interesting opportunities and challenges for computer vision research. This meeting will bring together researchers and practitioners, from both industry and academia, interested in all aspects of mobile computer vision - be it within consumer devices, autonomous/embedded systems or novel deployment domains.