From my experience this is what you get with MOOCs as currently presented
- A bundle of freely available automated online courseware
- Usually with a time release
- Maybe with a discussion, it may be minimally moderated, but not effectively moderated.
- Maybe it has peer assessment, but it’s not effectively moderated.
So MOOC is a new name for something we’ve had for while, it’s just bundled up and marketed better now – That’s OK.
Here’s my problem.
From an organisational perspective is it really a course, or just tricked up courseware?
Are the outcomes verifiable in any meaningful way?
Is it just bundled relabeled version of what we have via OER?
To my mind a MOOC doesn’t really become a course until there is some serious engagement and intervention by a teacher. And you can’t make claims about effectiveness without some form of fair, valid and reviewed assessment (i.e. not an online quiz or a student evaluation form).
In a sense it doesn’t become a MOOC (i.e. a course) until you add either the (always fee based) assessment/credentialing option (assuming this is a valid invigilated assessment), and/or a serious (usually fee based) tutoring option. The notion we have to drop (despite all the early hype) is that MOOCs are by definition free.
So what should we call these things.
I have joked about this in the past, but maybe we should forget the pithy acronyms and start updating our definitions. Here’s what I’m going to do:
- Open enrollment online courseware, usually free – MOOCw
- Open enrollment moderated online courseware, free or fee based – MMOOCw
- Open enrollment online course, usually with a fee attached but the courseware is usually free – MOOC
I think this more than semantics. As industry experts we need to be able to define what we’re talking about. MOOC just doesn’t do it.