LibbySoucaze_FinalPresentation

Introduction

Massive Open Online Courses, also fondly referred to as “MOOCs” got their start in Canada, more specifically The University of Manitoba. In 2008 Stephen Downes and George Siemens offered their course called Connectivism and Connectivity Knowledge to a class of 25 in-person students. Further, they opened the course to 2,300 additional students who were able to participate for free. In 2011, Stanford University’s Peter Norvig and Sebastian Thrun offered their course, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence to an enrollment of over 160,000 students from around the globe. More than 20,000 students completed the course. 2012 is the year MOOCs really took off. Three MOOC platform giants were born: Coursera, Udacity, and Udemy. The latest milestone for MOOCs was in 2015 when, for the first time ever, students had the opportunity to earn college credit for their participation in MOOCs on edX (McGill University, 2021).

MOOCs are free online courses available to everyone and anyone. They are the epitome of open access as they offer “global, free, video-based instructional content” to a “high volume [of] participants” (mooc.org). There are two primary models of MOOCs: cMOOC and xMOOC. A cMOOC is based around the idea of connectivisim. The participants and in this way, the participants play the role of both teacher and student. There are lots of discussions among participants with little interference from the instructor. xMOOCs on the other hand are eXtended MOOCs. They are essentially a typical classroom course structure, transferred to an online context. The course is centered around the professor with pre-recorded lectures. There might be some discussion in forums, but the assessment mostly comes from quizzes, assignments, and exams.

Perspectives

There are a multitude of participant roles, however the main three are: Passive Participant, Active Participant, and Lurker. Passive participants engage with the course primarily by watching lecture videos. They don’t participate in discussions, complete assignments, or complete assessments. Lurkers could fall loosely into the category of Passive Participants because they also don’t participate in the course. However, they’re even less engaged than a Passive Participant. Lurkers are really in the MOOC just to observe. They might skip through the lecture recordings and skim the course material. Lurkers are those who are just trying to get a taste of the course or of the course’s discipline. Active Participants on the other hand want to get the very most out of the MOOC. They complete all the assigned work, quizzes, exams, and they’re very vocal in discussion forums (Hill, 2013).

Just as there is a range of participant roles, there is also a diverse variety of participant backgrounds. Currently, the largest category of participants are those called “Hobby Learners.” These are people who just want to delve further into their existing areas of interest or maybe want to try something new out. They’re not seeking a certificate or degree. Other backgrounds include educators and researchers, higher education students, vocational learners, and prospective students. These participants have a specific need from the MOOCs, whether that’s a certificate of upskilling, or materials for lesson planning (Baturay, 2015).

The list of benefits to MOOCs is long, but a key few are that they are completely free, they are flexible and they provide exposure to diverse thought from around the world. They also have the potential to alleviate overcrowding at universities whose course waitlists are extremely long. Some argue that professors and educators should have the opportunity to record and broadcast their lectures just as “actors, musicians, and standup comedians record their best performances.” In this way, it could also save a lot of time for professors who teach introductory and repetitive courses (Peterson, 2019).

Some of the major challenges with MOOCs are engagement, retention, and grading. These three significantly feed into one another. Grading tens of thousands of essays or assignments is impossible, let alone providing constructive feedback. There are algorithms that can grade simple assignments and evaluations, but anything subjective requires more than an algorithm. It can be extremely difficult, and some would argue impossible, to replicate the chemistry of in-person discussions. When meaningful engagement is lacking, retention rates fall. The dropout rates in MOOCs is incredibly high, many as high as 90% (Peterson, 2019).

Current State

Between the years 2019 and 2020, the number of participants or “learners'' nearly doubled. With 45 million learners, Coursera was the leading MOOC provider in 2019, offering 3,800 courses, 420 microcredentials, and 16 degrees (Shah, 2019). However, by the end of the following year, Coursera’s number of learners jumped to 76 million (Shah, 2020). This leap in numbers is in large part due to the COVID-19 pandemic when millions of people sought new forms of entertainment, engagement, and connection. Between mid-March and mid-May of 2020, Coursera welcomed 10 million new users (Lohr, 2020).

There are currently 72 MOOC-based Master’s Degrees offered by 27 different universities worldwide, not including China (Ledwon, 2021). However, there are currently only 7 MOOC-based Bachelor’s degrees offered by just 4 universities (Ledwon, 2021). All of these degrees naturally lend themselves to an online learning environment. The broad categories of disciplines include, technology, business, management, marketing, and leadership (Ledwon, 2021).

The Future

The digital economy has only been rising with no sign of quitting. This shift has forced companies to re-evaluate the skills needed for the positions they offer. Today, more than eighty percent of middle-skill jobs require digital skills (Burning Glass Technologies, 2017). Many companies are taking advantage of MOOCs to upskill their full-time workers. The flexibility of MOOCs allows full-time employees to further their education without sacrificing much time on their current job.

In the future, I think there will be a shift in the categories of participant backgrounds. Currently, “Hobby Learners” comprise the majority of MOOC participants (Baturay, 2015), but I think “Vocational Learners” will eventually far surpass the other categories.

Sources (for both the presentation and the report)

Baturay, M. H. (2015, March 29). An overview of the world of moocs. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042815007363.

Burning Glass Technologies. (2017). Digital Skills Gap Research on Digital Skills, Digital Literacy, and the Future of Work. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.burning-glass.com/research-project/digital-skills-gap/

Hill., P. (2017, May 8). The four student archetypes emerging in MOOCs. eLiterate. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://eliterate.us/the-four-student-archetypes-emerging-in-moocs/.

Koller, D., Ng, A., & Chen, Z. (2013, June 3). Retention and Intention in Massive Open Online Courses: In Depth. EDUCAUSE Review. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/6/retention-and-intention-in-massive-open-online-courses-in-depth.

Ledwan, H. (2021, May 25). 70+ legit master's degrees you can now earn completely online. The Report by Class Central. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.classcentral.com/report/mooc-based-masters-degree/#CSEngineering.

Lohr, S. (2020, May 26). Remember the moocs? after near-death, they're booming. The New York Times. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/26/technology/moocs-online-learning.html.

McGill University. (2015, November 16). A brief history of moocs. MAUT. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.mcgill.ca/maut/news-current-affairs/moocs/history.

Oxford Review Briefings. (2020, April 16). MOOCS, cMOOCs and xMOOCs: Definition and Explanation. The Oxford Review. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://oxford-review.com/oxford-review-encyclopaedia-terms/moocs-cmoocs-and-xmoocs-definition-and-explanation/.

Peterson, D. (2019, May 30). Is taking a massive open online course, or MOOC, a good or bad thing? ThoughtCo. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-moocs-31030.

Smith, K. (2014, September 2). MOOCs and student learning. Scholarly Communications at Duke. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2014/09/02/moocs-student-learning/.

Shah, D. (2020, December 8). By the numbers: MOOCs in 2020 . The Report by Class Central. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.classcentral.com/report/mooc-stats-2020/.

Shah, D. (2020, November 30). By the numbers: MOOCs in 2019. The Report by Class Central. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://www.classcentral.com/report/mooc-stats-2019/.

Touro College. (2019, September 9). What is the difference between xMOOCs and cmoocs? Online Education Blog of Touro College. Retrieved December 5, 2021, from https://blogs.onlineeducation.touro.edu/distinguishing-between-cmoocs-and-xmoocs/.