Moocs Now

Learn from experts who have created and presented Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that can reach a vast audience, and discover how to develop and present this new online form of continuing education. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have become popular with eager learners as well as some educators wanting to test the boundaries of learning. Understandably, many educators approach MOOCs with trepidation and a number of questions. Are MOOCs simply a fad? Does this new venue threaten traditional higher education models? How are teachers to be remunerated for their efforts? And what can be done about student retention in an anonymous venue of a MOOC? This book answers these questions and many more, offering a practical and realistic guide to MOOCs—one that will help anyone involved in higher education to better understand MOOCs and enable them to make decisions about whether and how to offer MOOCs. The authors address topics such as the various costs of offering a MOOC (teachers, developers, licensing, and software), explain accessibility options, examine the challenges of copyright and the administration required, and explore what the librarian's role should be. This insightful guide also explains your options for the presentation of text, video, and audio content; whether to give assignments or tests; and how to decide whether you should offer your MOOC for free or require a fee and offer a certificate upon course completion.

As new digital forms of formal and informal learning proliferate, there is an increasing need to better understand how people in different regions of the world are implementing massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other forms of open educational resources (OERs). Educators, researchers, politicians, and numerous other stakeholders want to grasp what the outcomes of these initiatives are and how they can be improved. Ongoing e-learning developments related to both technology and pedagogy have pushed institutions and organizations to grapple with issues of accreditation, credentialing, quality standards, innovative assessment, and learner motivation and attrition, among other areas of concern. In response, MOOCs and Open Education Around the World explores and illuminates unique implementations of MOOCs and open education across regions and nations. The book also focuses on the various opportunities as well as the dilemmas presented in this rapidly evolving age of technology-enabled learning. What are the different delivery formats, interaction possibilities, assessment schemes, and business models? What are the key controversies or issues that must be discussed and addressed? This edited collection explains MOOCs and open education trends and issues in a variety of contexts, shares key research findings, and provides practical suggestions and recommendations for the near future.

Pamela Bogart, an instructor at the University of Michigan's English Language Institute, explains the ins and outs of massive open online courses (MOOCs), particularly those that can support language learning. The author begins by describing what a MOOC is; she then identifies the various types of MOOCs and their pedagogical benefits and shows how MOOCs can aid in the language learning process and offer students a more richly textured blended learning experience. The text concludes with tips for creating and designing a MOOC. Each section includes an Exploration Task that invites readers to deepen their personal understanding of and experience with MOOCs.

Everything you always wanted to know about MOOCs: an account of massive open online courses and what they might mean for the future of higher education. The New York Times declared 2012 to be “The Year of the MOOC” as millions of students enrolled in massive open online courses (known as MOOCs), millions of investment dollars flowed to the companies making them, and the media declared MOOCs to be earth-shaking game-changers in higher education. During the inevitable backlash that followed, critics highlighted MOOCs' high dropout rate, the low chance of earning back initial investments, and the potential for any earth-shaking game change to make things worse instead of better. In this volume in the Essential Knowledge series, Jonathan Haber offers an account of MOOCs that avoids both hype and doomsaying. Instead, he provides an engaging, straightforward explanation of a rare phenomenon: an education innovation that captures the imagination of the public while moving at the speed of an Internet startup. Haber explains the origins of MOOCs, what they consist of, the controversies surrounding them, and their possible future role in education. He proposes a new definition of MOOCs based on the culture of experimentation from which they emerged, and adds a student perspective—missing in most MOOC discussion. Haber's unique Degree of Freedom experiment, during which he attempted to learn the equivalent of a four-year liberal arts degree in one year using only MOOCs and other forms of free education, informs his discussion. Haber urges us to avoid the fallacy of thinking that because MOOCs cannot solve all educational challenges they are not worth pursuing, and he helps us understand what MOOCs—despite their limitations—still offer the world. His book is required reading for anyone trying to sort out the competing claims, aspirations, and accusations that color the MOOC debate.

Take a broad, balanced look at the present and potential MOOC landscape in higher education. This special volume highlights current trends and issues related to the emergence and development of a new instructional form in higher education: Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In these online distance education courses, enrollment is usually open to anyone who wishes to take them. This volume provides institutional researchers with information about the possibilities and challenges for current and future research on MOOCs. Topics covered include: defining and classifying MOOCs and who takes them, defining what persistence in them means or should mean, describing the legal issues MOOC providers and enrollees face, and identifying trends in the "big data" that MOOCs can provide. This is the 167th volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Timely and comprehensive, New Directions for Institutional Research provides planners and administrators in all types of academic institutions with guidelines in such areas as resource coordination, information analysis, program evaluation, and institutional management.

Leading proponents and critics articulate and debate the rapid rise of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) as an educational and open access innovation

Massive Open Online Courses, known as MOOCs, have arisen as the logical consequence of marrying long-distance education with the web and social media. MOOCs were confidently predicted by advanced thinkers decades ago. They are undoubtedly here to stay, and provide a valuable resource for learners and teachers alike. This book focuses on music as a domain of knowledge, and has three objectives: to introduce the phenomenon of MOOCs; to present ongoing research into making MOOCs more effective and better adapted to the needs of teachers and learners; and finally to present the first steps towards 'social MOOCs’, which support the creation of learning communities in which interactions between learners go beyond correcting each other's assignments. Social MOOCs try to mimic settings for humanistic learning, such as workshops, small choirs, or groups participating in a Hackathon, in which students aided by somebody acting as a tutor learn by solving problems and helping each other. The papers in this book all discuss steps towards social MOOCs; their foundational pedagogy, platforms to create learning communities, methods for assessment and social feedback and concrete experiments. These papers are organized into five sections: background; the role of feedback; platforms for learning communities; experiences with social MOOCs; and looking backwards and looking forward. Technology is not a panacea for the enormous challenges facing today's educators and learners, but this book will be of interest to all those striving to find more effective and humane learning opportunities for a larger group of students.

This book provides theoretical and empirical discussions around the impact of MOOCs and other pedagogical strategies for online learning in international contexts. Through discussions of inverse blended learning and other teaching and learning approaches, Part I navigates the pressing conceptual issues around global online education. By analyzing the Malaysia MOOC Initiative—the first governmental MOOC project in the world—Part II offers insight into the developmental strategies, learning design, and integrative approaches of these pioneering efforts. Edited by leading scholars in the field of globalized online learning, this volume offers a valuable contribution to research around collaborative initiatives between governments and universities, especially ones dedicated to open and distance education.