It has been a little while since I last posted (two years--really?) and so it is not surprising that there have been a number of changes. What is perhaps more surprising is the relatively slow rate of evolution. Given all the excitement engendered by the launch of the first MOOCs (the New York Times called 2012 "The Year of the MOOC") we might have expected to see an explosion in the number of courses and student enrolments, innovative approaches on both existing and new platforms, and a growing acceptance of MOOCs by both colleges and employers. The reality has been rather less earth-shattering and distinctly more incremental.
In this first post of 2016 I'll just touch on a few areas of change and look at some broader issues. I'll return to discuss them in more detail in later postings. To capture two years in a few words, I would characterise 2014 as a year of consolidation and 2015 as a period of restructuring.
2014 saw very few significant changes in the MOOC marketplace. The two major players, Coursera and edX, continued to expand their range of courses. Among the smaller players Futurelearn, which had debuted in late 2013, collected more partners but failed to make a big impact on the world scene while Open2Study seemed to stall offering no new courses at all. Udacity had effectively left the MOOC field in late 2013 'pivoting' its offering towards paid vocational courses.
Both Coursera and edX had introduced versions of verified certificates in 2013 and continued to promote them in 2014. As the only successful revenue source for MOOCs to date this was particularly important for Coursera who were relying on a substantial raft of venture capital in order to keep afloat. Once again mirroring each other, both the major players had also introduced the concept of sequences of related courses building towards an overall certification, XSeries in the case of edX and Specializations for Coursera. 2014 saw the steady growth of such sequences. During 2014 these sequences were mainly constructed from existing or already planned courses.
So 2014 really saw nothing too dramatic happening. A few courses here and there gained (US) college accreditation but there were not the seismic shifts predicted by some in the education industry. So how did 2015 shape up? More of the same or some surprises?
2015 will, I suspect, be seen as the year when finances really started becoming a central concern. If in nothing else, this can be seen in the attitude of providers towards free certificates. By the close of 2015 both edX and Coursera had essentially stopped issuing free certificates. This can only be explained as being a response to the need to promote their verified certificates. The problem both had faced was that the verified certificates offered little advantage to students: colleges weren't interested in non-accredited courses and employers, frankly, didn't care so long as candidates had skills that they wanted. The only way to persuade more students to pay for certificates was simply to remove the option of free certification.
Coursera finally began to update its user interface and move, as I predicted a couple of years ago, towards self-paced courses. Although synchronous ('cohort-based' in Coursera's terms) courses continued to be offered they were outstripped by the growth of self-paced courses, many built on the resources originally produced for what are already being called 'traditional' MOOCs. The new interface looked a lot slicker but seemed to perform less well in terms of functionality. Forums, previously the heart of Coursera, were curiously side-lined (with some courses having no forums) while the peer assessment system was also changed to accommodate the greater flexibility required for self-paced courses. One rather odd decision was the removal of anonymity of peers; not only does the reviewer know the identity of the student they are assessing but the student also knows who marked their work.
Over at the Saylor Academy, a resource that is shamefully under-promoted, radical changes were underway. In late summer of 2014 it had been announced that there were some 'mainly cosmetic' changes coming up. By early 2015 it became apparent that these changes were 'root and branch' rather than cosmetic. Having rapidly expanded their portfolio of courses, built around the idea of duplicating the ten most popular US college majors, to over 300 they found that the money generously provided by their benefactor Michael Saylor simply didn't run to supporting such an ambitious programme.
Saylor decided, therefore, to cut down to around a third of the previous total focusing their efforts on two full college curricula (Computing and Business) and a selection of other courses for which they had been successful in obtaining accreditation. Although I am on record of being sceptical in regard to accreditation of MOOC courses dramatic events in the first weeks of 2016 (about which I'll write on another day) were to force me to reappraise my position. Saylor also moved the surviving courses on to a new Moodle-based platform and introduced a rather better forum system.
In some ways 2015 was disappointing for MOOC enthusiasts; free certificates disappearing, platforms shrinking (Saylor Academy) or apparently going into suspended animation (Open2Study) and still no real progress on accreditation (for those who cared) or a real answer to the ultimate question, "Who pays the bills?"
Maybe 2016 will be more exciting. . .
Showing posts with label edX. Show all posts
Showing posts with label edX. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 January 2016
Monday, 14 October 2013
Open2Study: MOOC... or MOOC-lite
Open2Study is one of the lesser known learning platforms based, for once, not in the US but in Australia. It is backed by Open Universities Australia who are providers of accredited online and distance qualifications. So, what has Open2Study to offer that differentiates it from the major players like Coursera or edX?
Open2Study currently offers around thirty courses and is growing this total slowly but steadily, adding a few more each month. The courses have a slightly different focus to those offered by the big US players with more attention to vocational topics and less paralleling of existing university programmes. The distinctive feature of Open2Study is the highly structured nature of its courses; every course is the same length, shares the same internal structure and even appears to have had its videos shot in the same studio. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this approach, as we shall see.
All Open2Study courses are four weeks long. While this makes them accessible to more potential students it also imposes a tremendous limitation on how much material can be covered. Most of the courses are clearly intended to be introductory but four weeks can be rather short even to meet that ambition. Courses repeat on a five week cycle with all courses starting on the same date.
Each course has the same structure of a weekly series of 8-9 video lectures, each around 5 minutes in length. This gives about 45 minutes of lecture time per week and, as few courses have any other elements, that's it for learning. There is a single multiple choice question "Pop Quiz" after each segment (other than the last) and then a module assessment consisting of five similarly styled questions. The pass mark is 60% average across the four assessments but, in truth, most students should be getting 100%. Assessments can be repeated if you want to improve your score (or learning). Assessments open at the start of each week but can be taken at any time up to the end of course.
The videos all appear to have been produced in the same studio with the speakers usually appearing against a black background and being shot from a two camera set up. I find this a little distracting as the producers have a tendency to use far too many shots from camera two which is at an angle to the speaker showing them in a semi-profile talking to the main camera.
Most videos also make use of a clear screen 'whiteboard' with the presenter writing from behind the panel and the image being flipped horizontally so the writing is not mirror-imaged. This has the side-effect of making most presenters appear left-handed but possibly only those with my nit-picking nature would notice that! While it makes a change from the usual run of Powerpoint presentations, I wish they would buy some new markers as the speakers struggle from time to time to write clearly with fading pens! A quick mention should be made hear of the anonymous young lady who provides many of the illustrations drawn in 'real time' on the same board; she is clearly a very skilled artist and should have some credit.
I should also mention the course forums. The set up does not really encourage participation (in my view). The forums seem to be very fragmented and visible only while you are completing a particular module so, having made a comment and moved on to a later section, it is unlikely that posters will see responses or follow up on the discussions. In practice it is unusual to see a discussion getting past one or two responses. This is, in part, down to the relatively low numbers participating (500-1000 registered students seems typical) but the forum design also plays a part. In fact, it is possible to access earlier discussions but the site doesn't tempt you to do so. Instructors do not interact on the forums although there are some 'Learning Facilitators' who drop in mainly to address technical and administrative issues.
There are some advantages to the fixed design of courses: it is easy to find your way around, once you've completed your first course; scheduling is straightforward as they all run for four weeks; there is less scope (from the operator's side) for technical issues and it should be more straightforward to roll out platform improvements. The disadvantages are equally unsurprising: the four week courses are very short; there is no scope for additional activities such as peer assessed writing or programming exercises; assessments are pretty unchallenging.
Courses are quite variable in quality of content, despite the uniform production, but the short length means that there is little reason not to complete the courses, once started. Certificate's of Achievement are issued (as pdf files) to those who reach the 60% threshold and, unusually, show the percentages gained on each assessment (on a second page). There is clear signposting from the course page to (paid) accredited courses offered by Open Universities Australia - although I wonder how many will be interested in following up on those.
An additional progress indicator is offered through the use of 'badges'. These seem to be popular in some quarters--although they seem rather juvenile to me--and reward participation in social aspects as well as study activities. The badges are not (yet) integrated with any external badging such as Mozilla OpenBadges although I understand they are planning to address this in the future.
Overall, some interesting areas of study--I've not seen an introduction to nursing offered elsewhere--but all at a very superficial level. If you want a very brief introduction that will neither take too much time nor tax you too much then take a look. It makes a change to hear a different accent but, to be honest, some of the speakers really aren't that good. Open2Study needs to think about offering longer courses or having multi-part courses as the four week pattern is very restrictive. They should also consider introducing more active learning activities beyond simply watching videos and they really need to rethink the forum design.
Open2Study currently offers around thirty courses and is growing this total slowly but steadily, adding a few more each month. The courses have a slightly different focus to those offered by the big US players with more attention to vocational topics and less paralleling of existing university programmes. The distinctive feature of Open2Study is the highly structured nature of its courses; every course is the same length, shares the same internal structure and even appears to have had its videos shot in the same studio. There are both advantages and disadvantages to this approach, as we shall see.
All Open2Study courses are four weeks long. While this makes them accessible to more potential students it also imposes a tremendous limitation on how much material can be covered. Most of the courses are clearly intended to be introductory but four weeks can be rather short even to meet that ambition. Courses repeat on a five week cycle with all courses starting on the same date.
Each course has the same structure of a weekly series of 8-9 video lectures, each around 5 minutes in length. This gives about 45 minutes of lecture time per week and, as few courses have any other elements, that's it for learning. There is a single multiple choice question "Pop Quiz" after each segment (other than the last) and then a module assessment consisting of five similarly styled questions. The pass mark is 60% average across the four assessments but, in truth, most students should be getting 100%. Assessments can be repeated if you want to improve your score (or learning). Assessments open at the start of each week but can be taken at any time up to the end of course.
The videos all appear to have been produced in the same studio with the speakers usually appearing against a black background and being shot from a two camera set up. I find this a little distracting as the producers have a tendency to use far too many shots from camera two which is at an angle to the speaker showing them in a semi-profile talking to the main camera.
Most videos also make use of a clear screen 'whiteboard' with the presenter writing from behind the panel and the image being flipped horizontally so the writing is not mirror-imaged. This has the side-effect of making most presenters appear left-handed but possibly only those with my nit-picking nature would notice that! While it makes a change from the usual run of Powerpoint presentations, I wish they would buy some new markers as the speakers struggle from time to time to write clearly with fading pens! A quick mention should be made hear of the anonymous young lady who provides many of the illustrations drawn in 'real time' on the same board; she is clearly a very skilled artist and should have some credit.
I should also mention the course forums. The set up does not really encourage participation (in my view). The forums seem to be very fragmented and visible only while you are completing a particular module so, having made a comment and moved on to a later section, it is unlikely that posters will see responses or follow up on the discussions. In practice it is unusual to see a discussion getting past one or two responses. This is, in part, down to the relatively low numbers participating (500-1000 registered students seems typical) but the forum design also plays a part. In fact, it is possible to access earlier discussions but the site doesn't tempt you to do so. Instructors do not interact on the forums although there are some 'Learning Facilitators' who drop in mainly to address technical and administrative issues.
There are some advantages to the fixed design of courses: it is easy to find your way around, once you've completed your first course; scheduling is straightforward as they all run for four weeks; there is less scope (from the operator's side) for technical issues and it should be more straightforward to roll out platform improvements. The disadvantages are equally unsurprising: the four week courses are very short; there is no scope for additional activities such as peer assessed writing or programming exercises; assessments are pretty unchallenging.
Courses are quite variable in quality of content, despite the uniform production, but the short length means that there is little reason not to complete the courses, once started. Certificate's of Achievement are issued (as pdf files) to those who reach the 60% threshold and, unusually, show the percentages gained on each assessment (on a second page). There is clear signposting from the course page to (paid) accredited courses offered by Open Universities Australia - although I wonder how many will be interested in following up on those.
An additional progress indicator is offered through the use of 'badges'. These seem to be popular in some quarters--although they seem rather juvenile to me--and reward participation in social aspects as well as study activities. The badges are not (yet) integrated with any external badging such as Mozilla OpenBadges although I understand they are planning to address this in the future.
Overall, some interesting areas of study--I've not seen an introduction to nursing offered elsewhere--but all at a very superficial level. If you want a very brief introduction that will neither take too much time nor tax you too much then take a look. It makes a change to hear a different accent but, to be honest, some of the speakers really aren't that good. Open2Study needs to think about offering longer courses or having multi-part courses as the four week pattern is very restrictive. They should also consider introducing more active learning activities beyond simply watching videos and they really need to rethink the forum design.
Sunday, 2 June 2013
Who's Who in the World of MOOCs
Now we have the general idea of what these MOOC things are, let's take a quick look at some of the main players.
Coursera is probably the biggest of the MOOC providers with close to four hundred courses on offer and millions of registered students. Courses are all free and share a common user interface. The content is supplied by a wide range of universities, mainly US-based but increasingly worldwide. Subscribing institutions include the University of Pennsylvania, John Hopkins University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of London and Princeton University among many others.
Courses are based around weekly video lectures and typically include both machine-graded and peer-evaluated assessment elements. Most courses issue 'statements of accomplishment' to those who meet the requirements and a few go further to mark the highest achievers 'with Distinction'. A small minority of course providers do not permit such certificates to be issued, most notably including Princeton and Yale.
edX is non-profit set up by MIT and Harvard to compete head on with the likes of Coursera and Udacity (both for-profit spin-offs from Stanford). It currently has around 60 courses running or upcoming. It is expected to have many more coming up soon as some 29 universities from around the world have joined. Among those joining the founding institutions are Berkeley, Rice, University of Toronto, Cornell and Kyoto University.
Courses follow a similar pattern being based around weekly lectures and assignments. Peer assessment seems much less common on edX than is the case with Coursera. Certificates of Achievement are issued by all courses and marked with both the names of both edX and the sponsoring university. Courses typically run from 5 to 12 weeks in length and require 5-15 hours study time although this obviously depends on the individual.
Udacity is the third of the big high profile providers and arose from the same pilot-work at Stanford that spawned Coursera. Like Coursera, it is a for-profit business although they have not yet settled on a monetisation plan. Most of Udacity's courses were produced internally but they have recently partnered with San Jose State University to offer a small number of courses with the option of earning college credit, to which we will return in a moment.
Courses are generally self-paced,that is,the student can proceed as fast or as slow as suits their needs and abilities. The exceptions to this are the San Jose 'for credit' option courses where students must work to the schedule for lectures and assessments. Udacity courses are notable for having extremely short lectures slices, typically one or two minutes, interspersed with single question quizzes. How you get on with this presentation style will depend on the individual. Certificates of Achievement are provided for all courses. Courses are free to students but the SJSU college credit option cost $150 for administration costs etc.
Other options exist, there are new providers such as Open2Study in Australia and an offering sponsored by the Open University in Britain, Futurelearn, which is due to launch later this year. I'll return to these in later posts.
Saylor.org is the last provider that I want to mention today and it is last because it is rather different. Saylor.org is a charitable trust sponsored by Michael J. Saylor with the aim of providing free educational access for all. Operating from 2008 in the Open Education Resources field it has latterly moved into online education and now has an unusual and impressive offering. Two things make Saylor different, the use of existing open access material and the attempt to emulate a full US-style four year degree programme.
Saylor's aim is to offer, free of charge, programmes that match the most popular US college courses and majors. They currently offer just under three hundred courses, the vast majority at undergraduate level. Students may enroll in an 'Area of Study ' and be guided through a full programme including major core and electives courses and a General Education requirement.
I'm a big fan of Saylor and will be returning to talk more about them next time.
Coursera is probably the biggest of the MOOC providers with close to four hundred courses on offer and millions of registered students. Courses are all free and share a common user interface. The content is supplied by a wide range of universities, mainly US-based but increasingly worldwide. Subscribing institutions include the University of Pennsylvania, John Hopkins University, Georgia Institute of Technology, University of London and Princeton University among many others.
Courses are based around weekly video lectures and typically include both machine-graded and peer-evaluated assessment elements. Most courses issue 'statements of accomplishment' to those who meet the requirements and a few go further to mark the highest achievers 'with Distinction'. A small minority of course providers do not permit such certificates to be issued, most notably including Princeton and Yale.
edX is non-profit set up by MIT and Harvard to compete head on with the likes of Coursera and Udacity (both for-profit spin-offs from Stanford). It currently has around 60 courses running or upcoming. It is expected to have many more coming up soon as some 29 universities from around the world have joined. Among those joining the founding institutions are Berkeley, Rice, University of Toronto, Cornell and Kyoto University.
Courses follow a similar pattern being based around weekly lectures and assignments. Peer assessment seems much less common on edX than is the case with Coursera. Certificates of Achievement are issued by all courses and marked with both the names of both edX and the sponsoring university. Courses typically run from 5 to 12 weeks in length and require 5-15 hours study time although this obviously depends on the individual.
Udacity is the third of the big high profile providers and arose from the same pilot-work at Stanford that spawned Coursera. Like Coursera, it is a for-profit business although they have not yet settled on a monetisation plan. Most of Udacity's courses were produced internally but they have recently partnered with San Jose State University to offer a small number of courses with the option of earning college credit, to which we will return in a moment.
Courses are generally self-paced,that is,the student can proceed as fast or as slow as suits their needs and abilities. The exceptions to this are the San Jose 'for credit' option courses where students must work to the schedule for lectures and assessments. Udacity courses are notable for having extremely short lectures slices, typically one or two minutes, interspersed with single question quizzes. How you get on with this presentation style will depend on the individual. Certificates of Achievement are provided for all courses. Courses are free to students but the SJSU college credit option cost $150 for administration costs etc.
Other options exist, there are new providers such as Open2Study in Australia and an offering sponsored by the Open University in Britain, Futurelearn, which is due to launch later this year. I'll return to these in later posts.
Saylor.org is the last provider that I want to mention today and it is last because it is rather different. Saylor.org is a charitable trust sponsored by Michael J. Saylor with the aim of providing free educational access for all. Operating from 2008 in the Open Education Resources field it has latterly moved into online education and now has an unusual and impressive offering. Two things make Saylor different, the use of existing open access material and the attempt to emulate a full US-style four year degree programme.
Saylor's aim is to offer, free of charge, programmes that match the most popular US college courses and majors. They currently offer just under three hundred courses, the vast majority at undergraduate level. Students may enroll in an 'Area of Study ' and be guided through a full programme including major core and electives courses and a General Education requirement.
I'm a big fan of Saylor and will be returning to talk more about them next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)