MOOCs for Professional Development (ACHE November 2015)

What is a MOOC?

A MOOC is a "Massive Open Online Course" - it has a beginning and an end. Most MOOCs today are not fully open since all of the material is copyrighted and may not be used by anyone other than the university and the provider. MOOCs today close at the end of the course and are not openly available outside of the actual course.

When and why did they develop?

• Began in 2007 with experimental efforts to serve large numbers in truly open online classes
• 18 of the early MOOCs are chronicled by WikiEducator
• Largest of the early MOOCs was eduMOOC

http://www.extremenetworks.com/trends-in-massive-open-online-courses-infographic

Uses of MOOCs Outside of Subject-Based Higher Education

MOOCs: Not Just for College Students - How Organizations Can Use MOOCs for Professional Development

"Companies are taking the idea and often the structure of this next iteration of online learning, and creating their own MOOCs, both internal and external facing.” - http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-moocs-are-flattening-corporate-training-and-education/

• Employee Training
• Professional Development
• Information Sharing
• Collaboration
• Discussions & Debates on Public Interest Topics

2014: The Year of the Corporate MOOC - http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2014/02/04/the-recovery-arrives-corporate-training-spend-skyrockets/

Online Corporate Learning is one of Inc.'s 5 Top Trends in Education Technology in 2015 - http://www.inc.com/aaron-skonnard/5-top-trends-in-education-technology-2015.html

MOOCs: From Academia to Corporate (Whitepaper) - https://www.docebo.com/landing/learning-management-system/moocs-whitepaper-noform.php?DEMDOCEBO

When Will Professional Associations Start to Take MOOCs Seriously - http://adigaskell.org/2014/09/18/when-will-professional-associations-start-to-take-moocs-seriously/

How are Companies & Associations "Creating" MOOCs for Professional Development?

• Using externally-created MOOCs as a substitute for company-sponsored training
• Customizing open courses to develop training specific to their needs
• Working with MOOC providers to provide content development services, learning platforms, and content licensing - http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2013/11/30/the-mooc-marketplace-takes-off/

Benefits of MOOCs for Professional Development

• Reduces Costs
  • Employee training expenditures is over $150 billion per year - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2013/08/13/how-moocs-will-revolutionize-corporate-learning-development/
  • Corporate e-learning training expenditures is $56.2 billion - http://www.gurufocus.com/news/309235/why-are-corporations-making-the-shift-towards-elearning
  • Corporate e-learning market is expected to increase 13% annually until 2017 - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2013/08/13/how-moocs-will-revolutionize-corporate-learning-development/
• Improves Efficiency, Reach & Employee Engagement
  • Saves employees time
  • Increases size of training (not limited to physical room size)
  • Efficient way to reach a global employee base, dispersed association members, or the general public
  • Build better relations with business partners, customers, potential employees - http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2013/11/30/the-mooc-marketplace-takes-off/
  • Increase company/brand visibility
• Increases Flexibility of Training
  • Increases relevancy and availability of training
  • Provides just-in-time training - http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-moocs-are-flattening-corporate-training-and-education/
  • Training for competencies not available through traditional higher education
  • Unifies the learning experience for employees - http://www.udemy.com/organizations/blog/2014/05/29/the-business-benefits-of-adopting-a-corporate-mooc-in-your-organization/
  • Employees can use their own devices - http://www.inc.com/aaron-skonnard/5-top-trends-in-education-technology-2015.html
• Personalizes the Training Experience
  • Learning is self-paced and modular
    • Beneficial for employees who find it difficult to devote entire workdays to in-person training - http://www.udemy.com/organizations/blog/2013/06/24/what-are-the-lessons-of-massive-open-online-courses-moocs-for-corporate-learning-and-training/
  • Improves the learning experience for employees who find in-person training to be too fast or too slow for their learning needs
    • Employees can adapt their pace as needed to better consume the content - http://www.udemy.com/organizations/blog/2014/05/29/the-business-benefits-of-adopting-a-corporate-mooc-in-your-organization/
• Improves Assessment of Employees' Competencies
  • Training attendance does not equate to comprehension of training message or engagement in activities
  • Certification of completions, badges made available only after completion of pre-defined activities and assessments
  • LinkedIn has partnered with MOOC providers to create “Direct-to-Profile” certifications that appear in LinkedIn profile after participants successfully complete a class - http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/11/14/introducing-a-new-way-to-add-certifications-to-your-linkedin-profile/
• Improves Institutional Knowledge
  • Provides a platform for employees' tacit knowledge to be documented
  • Serves as a respository of resources for future reference
  • Newly-hired employees can "ramp up" more quickly - http://mashable.com/2015/01/24/social-trends-affecting-workplace/

Examples of How Companies & Associations are Using MOOCs

• "Nanodegree” offered by Udacity and its corporate partners
  • Not developed in collaboration with any higher education institution
  • “Credentials built and recognized by industry leaders” - http://www.udacity.com/nanodegrees
  • “They know what technical skills they need to hire for and which new skills their employees need. Because they use the technologies and skills they teach, they teach them in a concrete applicable way (Udacity, 2014).
  • Initial partners are AT&T, Cloudera, Salesforce and Autodesk
  • 6-12 month programs
  • Front and back-end Web development, IOS development, and data analysis
• Yahoo - reimburses employees for the cost of course-completion certificates when participating in an externally created MOOC, a cost that is much less than that of in-person training http://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2013/11/30/the-mooc-marketplace-takes-off/
• Pitney Bowes - train information technology developers on business skills and the latest programming languages
• Google’s g2g Program - helps employees collaborate and learn from each other’s rich set of experiences http://www.udemy.com/organizations/blog/2013/12/23/seven-ways-to-corporate-mooc/
• McAfee & Intel - new-hire training http://www.udemy.com/organizations/blog/2013/12/23/seven-ways-to-corporate-mooc/
• SAP - developed openSAP to educate developers and users of SAP - https://open.sap.com/
• Oracle - introduces Java developers to embedded applications - https://apex.oracle.com/pls/apex/
• 1-800-FLOWERS - educates independent florists on business and floral design topics
• Bank of America & Khan Academy - partnered to provide personal finance education to consumers http://www.bettermoneyhabits.com/
• Google, Amazon, and Facebook - screening job candidates and building talent pipelines for their companies
• TELUS - 6 week, company-wide employee training http://www.yourtrainingedge.com/moocs-from-the-classroom-to-the-conference-room/
• McAfee - Salesforce training has improved profitability & saved time - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2013/08/13/how-moocs-will-revolutionize-corporate-learning-development/
• State Boards of Accountancy in Maryland & Ohio have approved plans to accept Continuing Professional Education in 10-minute increments - http://www.accountingtoday.com/ato_issues/29_2/learning-to-love-new-ways-of-learning-73503-1.html
• eduMOOC - https://sites.google.com/site/moocsforpd/edumooc
• Palliative Care MOOC - https://sites.google.com/site/moocsforpd/one-patient---one-team
  • A Big Course from a Small Association - http://associationsnow.com/2014/09/a-big-course-from-a-small-association/

Will a MOOC-enabled future transform traditional higher education?

"We can see the impact the use of technology in learning is having on continuing education and lifelong learning just as the steamship impacted transportation and the far reaches of our

physical journeys."

-- Clayton Christensen and Michael Horn (2013) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/education/edlife/online-education-as-an-agent-of-transformation.html?_r=0

Contact information:

Presented by:

Michele Gribbins & John Freml

With contributions from:

Ray Schroeder, Vickie Cook, Emily Boles & Carrie Levin

Center for Online Learning, Research and Service

University of Illinois Springfield

One University Plaza

Springfield, IL 62703

http://colrs.uis.edu

217-206-7317