Hashing out the future purpose of MOOCs by Bryan Mann

Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, created a buzz in the world of higher education in 2012. MOOCs are web-based courses that allow professors to instruct students over the Internet for free. The online courses have provided global audiences an opportunity to engage in formal education once only available to traditional students, thus attempting to democratize learning. With this technology and widespread enthusiasm, proponents fantasized about the possibilities. They asked questions like: Could this be the innovation saves students from the exponential increase of tuition and costs? Could it be the method to provide access to traditionally under-served learners? Could it disrupt traditional university practices? The possibilities and hope of the new platform caused major media outlets such as The New York Times to label 2012 “The Year of the MOOC,” but now, a little more than a year later, the hype has subsided and the results indicate that MOOCs may have a different purpose and  identity than expected.

One of the initial hopes was that MOOCs could offer a world-class, free education to those who had not had access in the past. It now appears that MOOCs are filling needs outside purposes related to educational access to under-served students. For example, Sebastian Thrun, one of the leading figures in the MOOC movement and founder of the course provider Udacity, realized after a failed experiment with San Jose State University students (where students in the online version of the course were more than 50% more likely to achieve the learning objectives) that his MOOC provider best fits within a corporate training model. He announced his company would shift from university-based instruction to corporate training, and he said in an article by Fast Company, “We were on the front pages of newspapers and magazines, and at the same time, I was realizing, we don’t educate people as others wished, or as I wished. We have a lousy product.” In the article, Thrun went on to explain his new goal is now to focus on corporate training, a shift that indicates that his perception is that the identity and future of MOOCs may lie outside of overhauling the traditional university system.

In addition to the change in direction of one the of the movement’s forefathers to corporate training, recent demographic data shows that MOOCs have effectively reached adult learners who already have degrees. An article published in the journal Nature about University of Pennsylvania MOOC courses showed that 83 of percent users had already received a two- or four-year post secondary degree, 50 percent had fulltime jobs, and nearly 75 percent took courses out of curiosity or wanting to have fun. These initial demographic data show that MOOCs have so far only reached populations who were already benefactors of traditional education. This means that tailoring to this audience instead of under-served learners may be the more appropriate next step for the platform.

MOOCs have also faced concerns regarding course completion, which adds another layer to how they should conceptualize their model. Completion rates have hovered around only 7 percent, meaning that even though many courses initially enroll tens of thousands of students, only a few thousand actually finish. While this appears alarming, it may be misleading and not completely fair for MOOCs to negatively judge them based on poor course completion. Courses such as Penn State’s Creativity, Innovation, and Change (CIC) have recognized that MOOCs are different in nature than traditional courses and have users who often only like to browse material. Therefore, CIC offers different categories of learner expectations and tailor content based unique learner need. An emergent theme from this idea and the completion data is that MOOCs may be better suited to segment the credentialing of their learning through competency based incentives such as badges and certificates of specific skills, rather than credit for an entire course.

What these examples show about the first year and a half of MOOCs is that developers need to alter their expectations while considering the voids MOOCs can fill right now. These voids include education for adult learners, curious learners with the time and resources needed to access the courses, and training in the job market for employees who are supervised and held accountable for their learning. MOOCs are not going to disappear, but their immediate potential seems to lie as a supplement to traditional university practices. If they try to focus on finding ways to tailor their programs to students who typically have had greater needs and less access than traditional students, MOOC proponents will be disappointed because they have not been able to reach this sector.

Bryan Mann is a doctoral student in the Educational Theory and Policy program at Penn State University. He is a former high school English teacher who holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland. His current research interests include charter schools, cyber charter schools, and K-12 virtual education programs and policy.