Online learning - the future of education?

With tuition costs skyrocketing at many colleges and universities, and admission becoming more difficult at selective schools, debate is raging about a new (or perhaps not so new - depending on who you ask) development in higher education - Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This month, I'm going to take a break from my normal focus on college admissions and financial aid advice and explore a developing trend in higher education.

MOOCs share some features with the old-time correspondence courses - flexibility, independent learning, the ability to access the course from anywhere, on your own terms.  With advancing technology, however, MOOCS add a lot more - video lectures, links to nearly unlimited online resources, including interactive learning tools, and the ability to easily reach many thousands of students.

Arguments rage over the benefits and drawbacks of MOOCs.  For a good overview of the debate, see the following articles:

Napster, Udacity, and the Academy
Venture Capital's Massive, Terrible Idea for the Future of College
The Crisis in Higher Education

For a brief synopsis of the arguments, obvious advantages to MOOCs include:

• They're free
• Timing is usually flexible; you can access and work your way through the material in a way that fits your schedule
• They give access to some great courses developed by outstanding professors at prestigious universities
• They can reach many, many students - sometimes over 100,000 students in a single course
• They provide unprecedented access to higher education, regardless of geography, socio-economic status, ability to pay, or any other demographic feature

Some disadvantages to MOOCs include:

• High dropout rate - in many cases less than 20% of students who enroll complete even the first assignment
• There is little or no connection between the professor and the student
• There are some things a course with a dynamic professor can offer that can never be replicated in online education
• The course relies heavily on student self-motivation to complete (see first bullet point above)
• Quality control can be a problem - some courses have the backing of prestigious universities and are probably a good bet, but there's no guarantee
• They currently offer little or no support for struggling students; resources that might be found in a traditional college class.
• With so many students, there is no way for the professor to give direct feedback to all the students; grading relies on computer-graded quizzes and sometimes peer feedback.

The last point, about peer feedback, is not necessarily a bad thing; it's the way things work for research in many disciplines - the problem is that at the MOOC level, there is no shared level of expertise among the peer reviewers.

For more information on how this process works, see the following video from TED about Massive Open Online Courses:

Recently, the discussion has escalated with the announcement that some courses offered through the online provider Coursera may be eligible for credit.  These include courses from University of California at Irvine, Duke University, and University of Pennsylvania.  Issues of verification of student identity and work completed (proctoring) are yet to be worked out, but this is a large step forward in MOOCs becoming part of the mainstream of higher education.

So, will students be abandoning traditional universities and flocking to MOOCs?  Probably not. However, these massive online courses are sure to leave a mark on the world of university education.  Some developments that are already having an impact on campuses around the country:

• The rapid proliferation of MOOCS is causing advances in the development and dissemination of technology that can be useful in traditional classes as well - incorporating more multi-media and interactive content into university courses
• The large enrollment (hundreds of thousands of students) provides a gold mine of data for research into online education.  In fact, one of the websites offering courses (EdX) was perhaps designed in order to conduct research on student learning as much as to educate the students enrolled in the courses.
• MOOCs give prospective students the chance to try out a course - with little financial or academic risk - before they commit to the school.  They may also provide a good opportunity for pre-college students to experience college level coursework and get a feel for the level of reading and critical thinking they will experience in college.  A word of caution however - not all MOOCs are created equal, and quality control is still something that's being worked out.

One ideal use of MOOCs is for continuing education for mid-career professionals.  Much of the above information was brought to my attention in a MOOC I am currently taking on E-learning and Digital Cultures. 

So, freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, you are not off the hook for college and financial aid applications.  But, if you're interested, you might want to check out some of the course offerings at the following sites providing access to MOOCs (descriptions taken from the websites of the various organizations).  And share this information with your parents - there might be something there for them, too.

Non-profit organizations offering MOOCs:

EdX is a not-for-profit enterprise of its founding partners Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that features learning designed specifically for interactive study via the web.

The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is a grant-funded group at Carnegie Mellon University, offering innovative online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach.  Our aim is to create high-quality courses and contribute original research to improve learning and transform higher education.

For-profit companies offering MOOCs:

Coursera: We are a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. We envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions.

Udacity was born out of a Stanford University experiment in which Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig offered their "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" course online to anyone, for free.  Over 160,000 students in more than 190 countries enrolled and not much later, Udacity was born. Now wer'e a growing team of educators and engineers on a mission to change the future of education.

What do you think?  Please feel free to comment on how online education in general, and MOOCs in particular, are likely to affect the future of higher education.