MOOC Crib (Photo credit: snowpup5)
Thanks to games like World of Warcraft, many people are familiar with MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online games). However, people are probably somewhat less familiar with MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses).
While MOOCs vary considerably, the name provides their basic features. First, they are massive (or potentially so). This means that such a course can support an indefinite number of students. This is in obvious contrast to the traditional classroom which is limited by the size of the room and even with the now traditional online classes which are typically limited in size because they are taught by one (or a few) teachers.
Second, they are open. This is in contrast with the traditional closed course which is available only to students registered at a specific school. Currently, the MOOCs are operating on a free model as well—that is, students do not pay to take such classes. However, the monetization of MOOCs is certainly inevitable.
Third, they are online. This also typically involves a high degree of automation for the course. In most cases, a MOOC is pre-packaged course without interaction with an actual teacher.
Finally, they are courses—that is, they are aimed at teaching people something. The best known MOOCs, those offered by Coursera, are college classes. However, they could be classes at any level. Currently MOOCs do not provide college credit, but there are plans to change this—most likely as part of the monetization process.
Obviously, MOOCs do have some clear positive features. Since they are massive, they can support a large number of students, thus making the courses more widely available. Since they are open, the classes are available to anyone who can access a computer, thus making them available to people who might not otherwise be able to afford college classes.
As might be imagined, I find these aspects of MOOCs very appealing and consistent with my own view of broad education. After all, I have made my work on fallacies freely available for almost two decades and I have various (admittedly lame) educational videos on YouTube. However, as a professor I have some concerns about the future of MOOCs.
As noted above, it is a matter of time before MOOCs are monetized. In general, I have no problem with this—after all, I work for money and sell books via Amazon. Heck, I’d probably get involved with a reputable MOOC service. My main concern, then, is not that MOOCs will go from open to being monetized. Rather, my concern is what impact they could have on the quality of education.
Having been in education for a while, I am well aware of the business-model push to minimize costs in education. Before the web, there was (and still is) a push to have classes as large as possible—in my case, I am paid the same whether my class is a mere 35 students or a ridiculous 75 students. The web merely allows this to be taken to an even greater extreme, since it is not limited by the size of a physical classroom. With truly massive online courses, a single professor could supply an education product to thousands of students. There are, of course, some obvious concerns here. One is the workload of a professor responsible for a massive class. Another is the quality of education in such a diluted learning environment, even if the main professor is supported by graduate students or staff.
Of course, greater savings can be had by eliminating the professor entirely. That is, the class can (as MOOCs typically are now) be a pre-packaged learning product that the students click through, without any actual teacher. While a professor or other professional would be needed to design and create the course content and assessment material, this could be done once (like a book) and updated from time to time. Thus, rather than paying a professor for each semester, a professor could be paid to put himself (and others) out of a teaching job. No doubt, some star professors (like star authors) would make good money off the courses they created. However, it would probably not be very good for most faculty.
Naturally, if the MOOC is for credit, there would be a need to grade the work of the students. Much of this can be done, obviously enough, by the use of software. True/false tests and their ilk can easily be graded automatically. Papers, lab reports and so on would still require a human grader. However, just as graduate students are currently used as grading machines, they could be employed (at vastly lower pay than professors) to grade such work. Others could also be hired solely as graders, perhaps paid like migrant farmers in terms of the volume of their work—so much per page graded, perhaps. Outsourcing would also be an obvious approach here—just as students talk to a person in India for support for their software, their papers would be graded there as well, perhaps by the same person.
This would be a dream come true for some: the arrival of the industrial revolution in education in which the labor of a person (the professor) is replaced by a vastly more efficient mechanized (or rather computerized) education machine. Students simply pay their money, log in and click their way to a degree at minimal cost to the university or college. At long last the knowledge factory would be a true factory.
For those who would profit from such a system, it obviously has incredible appeal. A college could now operate like a true business, largely unburdened by costly and often troublesome professors. It could also be advantageous for students: they might pay significantly less for their education and be able to complete it faster than they could via the traditional means of education (or even via normal online classes).
There is, however, a point of great concern: would a MOOC be an adequate substitute for the traditional class or even the traditional online class? That is, would students have the same quality of education?
Honesty compels me to admit that when it comes to classes that are traditionally taught as massive lectures there would probably be little difference. In fact, a well done MOOC might actually be superior to the education acquired by sitting in a lecture hall with 800 other students, watching a professor up on stage. As such, such massive service classes could be reasonably replaced by MOOCs.
Obviously, some classes would not work as pure MOOCs, such as classes that require actual lab work, dissections or other such things that require a physical presence. Of course, a college could simply have labs run by low paid staff members with everything else being done via the MOOC.
However, there seem to be many classes that would lose a great deal of educational quality without the sort of interaction that having an actual teacher would provide. To use an obvious analogy, while clicking about on a web site to diagnose an illness can be a good start, at some point a person should probably see an actual doctor. Likewise, clicking through an automated class can be a good start, but at some point one should probably interact with an actual educator.
Of course, there is still the question of whether or not having the real thing (a doctor or professor) is worth the price. This is a matter that should be seriously considered. Of course, if we take the approach of replacing people whenever they can be replaced by automation, at some point we would replace everyone—even the administrators, shareholders and students. But perhaps the ultimate dream is to have a completely automated system: machines teaching machines and money automatically multiplied in automated banks with no humans left in the process at all. More seriously, the challenge, then, is deciding when the automation is not worth the price.
Alex Tabbarok wrote one of the more compelling justifications for online education that I’ve seen. But yes, I agree that there are concerns, especially around being sensitive to the fact that some material may suit the MOOC model better than others.
I’m (at the University of Cape Town) offering my first-year course (critical thinking & business ethics) in a hybrid model this year – students can do it completely online (except for the exam), or they can attend traditional lectures. The material is relatively simple, and can translate to online, so long as you spend plenty of time in discussion in chatrooms and the like. But I’d not want to teach a complex course this way.
It’s interesting to observe that a terrific growth in the attraction of live music events (pop, rock and classical) has been an unexpected phenomenon of recent years. This despite the very ready availability of online access to the recorded music, to film of studio recordings, of the live shows etc, to the point that many predict the end of old-style ‘recorded’ music. Could it be that MOOC will serve more as ‘advertising’ for academia and actually encourage people to participate in ‘the real thing’?
I was always vaguely flattered when students turned up in their hundreds to my lectures and labs. OK it was ‘timetabled’, but we know full well that many students duck some lectures without apparent harm. That is not a new phenomenon!
I think one issue that perhaps hasn’t received sufficient attention here is that for many (potential) students the question as to whether the more traditional educational money is worth the price doesn’t arise in the first place, because they simply don’t have any access to it in the first place. Thus, MOOCs have the potential to massively widen access to (higher) education. You do mention this positive feature at the start of the post, but then very quickly go to discuss your concerns. While I absolutely share these concerns, for me personally the widening access aspect of MOOCs is the most interesting (and potentially revolutionary) one.
Funny you should mention outsourcing grading to India. There was a little scandal in India a few years back. A college (or diploma mill, if you like) were using children under the age of ten as graders for their students.
There are already vast resources, students can use, on the web. Finding the good stuff can still be tricky, but the canon is growing. On Youtube there are lots of classroom lectures – these are simple to create, just a camera and a microphone, and it’s up. The world has changed massively, even in the last ten years (though the internet has been around longer, it’s really only in the last ten years it’s had such wide adoption). So, if you’re in some terrible far flung school, with awful teaching staff, and a dreadful library (where anything decent has long since been stolen, and the pickin’s of what’s left are slim), with a little googling you can get your hands on fantastic material.
But what is the value of a degree? (knowledge for the sake of knowledge or learning for the sake of learning are tautologies that put my teeth on edge). A former employer of mine, on his little business bio, he has the name of the IV League university he attended, his Greek letter fraternity, and that he did some running and jumping for the college – absolutely no mention of what he studied.
If you don’t do the running and jumping, and become a member of an elite fraternity, what’s the degree worth.
Sorry, I meant “educational model” (not money), of course.
Kristina, many people do not have access to the traditional educational money either.
For what it is worth my own education after leaving school was by means of correspondence courses. They were OK but I felt some how out of things. If you had a problem you had to write in to your tutor to discuss it and get help. This I hasten to add was before computers, Eventually I became a student of the Open University. This was good the courses were excellent and one could meet one’s tutor at certain times. However about 90% of the work was still done at home even in science where one was provided with home kits where experimental work was concerned. The work load was very heavy, marking was strict, and attendance at summer schools was compulsory. I was working for a living in those days, which was demanding, with a young family, and eventually I ground to a halt half way through a BSc course due to exhaustion. However one way or the other I had learnt quite a lot, in the Humanities and Science which still serves me today. Eventually when life generally became easier I became a full time undergraduate of a Proper University. From day one I realised this was without doubt the place to be. You could actually associate with people who were known experts in their field. Lectures by visiting academics was always valuable and intriguing, especially where one had read their books or published papers. The university library was like a heaven surrounded by books and silence one could read think and write all day. There was little difficulty in communicating with one’s supervisor when difficulties occurred and you could discuss face to face where you had gone wrong. The moral support given by all staff members was excellent. Daily interaction with other students was always possible and seminars, lectures, presentations, essays and dissertations enabled one to test one’s ideas and learn how to stand up against an onslaught of ideas contrary to one’s own, especially in cases where the interlocutor was Dr So and so, or Professor What’s his name, or should I say what’s her name. There was also a certain pride in being accepted at the university in the first place, and one felt as never before there was something to strive for, and live up to. It was moreover a hotbed of ideas, and excitement.
I have had no experience of MOOCs they do sound similar to my Open University days which were good but not a patch on Real University. I understand that that OU is now very highly computerised and I don’t think summer schools are as much used now as they were in my days. So given the choice and opportunity I would elect for “old fashioned” University for my education; I had prior to that, missed so much in my education by in the main, working at home.
Dr. Caffeine,
Interesting point. As you say, live venues seem to have considerable popularity, despite the readily available virtual experiences. The same could hold true of education-when people get a taste of the virtual, they might want some of the real stuff.
Kristina,
Good point. I do agree that the free online classes do provide an excellent opportunity for people to learn. I do still have concerns about them as replacements for traditional education.
But, of course, everyone fears the technology that could put them out of a living.
JMRC,
That is an excellent question. The degree is supposed to be evidence of education, but there are reasonable concerns that a degree is simply a ticket to a job.
What should really matter is ability, knowledge, and skills. However, the challenge is having a quick way to confirm that. A degree allows people to make a rapid assessment and hope that the degree really means what it is supposed to mean.
As Jesus so neatly said “Man does not exist for the Sabbath; the Sabbath exists for man.” And, so, it is that the student does not exist for the university.
The university, as an institution, needs to be re-engineered, if only because post-secondary education has become too expensive. Some students, of course, deserve what they pay for. Let him or her who would pay the equivalent of four years of semi-respectable income (say, $250,000 in all) for an American law school education, pay − indeed, $250,000 is not enough to save those poor souls. Still, there is something wrong with an education system that saddles so many young people with massive debt.
Perhaps technology can help. Why don’t the universities get together to use the same Administrative System? What good teaching or research do the Deans and Assistant Deans and Faculty Advisers et al. do for the students? That’s the idea, eh? Prune the sparse branches at top, and replenish the humble soil of the roots.
Mike LaBossiere,
The degree is supposed to be evidence of education. But. What is this “education” the investigators are looking for evidence of. That’s hopelessly broad – to narrow it down and get to the specifics. I’ve just finished reading James Lowen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me. He had some interesting things to say on the university education as a tool of socialisation. Say if prospective employers are looking at a proof of education as being a proof of socialisation, it’s something very different to proof of intellectual development or competence (And it’s possible they do not want intellectuals).
Membership of fraternities, or sporting “achievements” are signs of socialisation. (The reason I put “achievements” in inverted commas, is because many savvy students, who do not really have a competitive sports bone in their body, tag along with college sports teams, so they can deceptively include their sporting “achievements” on their resume – yes, your team competed internationally, and of the many losses they did win some vague prize in rural Austria that sounds very grand, but you were on the bench bored out of your mind – drinking schnapps disguised as sports tonic. Or go one step more devious, like my devious brother, who invented a college white water rafting team and made himself the captain – he never did go white water rafting, but it is undeniable that he was the captain of the team.) It sounds wholesome on the surface – socialisation, character building. But what kind of characters are being built – to paraphrase Tom Waits; what are they building in there?
I’ve heard many variations of the argument before, though I’ve just read Lowen. Long before Lowen, one of the questions that had many scratching their heads in the aftermath of the WWII, was how Germany, the most liberally educated country in the world, became what it became. Where were the critical thinking skills, all this liberal education should have endowed these people with. Where was the overwhelming assault of independent thought. The Germans to this day, are still searching their souls.
Lowen uses the opposition to the Vietnam war to explain the problem. One of the pervasive myths of the time – even strangely believed by people who were there – that university students were all anti-Vietnam protesting peaceniks. The reality, the peaceniks were a vocal minority – the majority of university students were pro-Vietnam. Lowen uses a 1971 Gallup poll to make his point. By then the majority of the American public were against the war – but in that poll, if you assumed the hawks were the uneducated working class, and the liberally educated graduates were the doves, you would be completely wrong. Lowen’s analysis is the critical thinking skills of the graduates were clouded by something; a cognitive dissonance due to their socialisation – an Orwellian Doublethink. Lowen’s book was published in 1995. He goes on to say, this graduate socialisation/cognitive dissonance, would lead to similar misadventures in the future.
I have my own pet theory, that teaching critical thinking skills, without some powerful caveat and mechanism to realise how the rationalisations of those critical thinking skills can be turned on a “clever” person to calm the intuitive alarm bell of cognitive dissonance, those same skills can create rational narratives for the absurd (the absurdities that lead to atrocities).
And back to materialism. Many employers value socialisation over hard skills or developed intellect. “soft skills”, is actually code for socialisation and some other very ugly toads; racism, sexism, classism, etc.
Could Paris 68, be completely inverted. The proletarian police, bus drivers, religious conservatives – Franciscan monks – Algerian Mullahs, the ignorant uneducated and economically excluded classes, ripping up the paving, and stoning the students of the Sorbonne.