Let’s talk about MOOCs

Business models, research and pedagogy: the year after the year of the MOOC

George RobertsOCSLD, Oxford Brookes University

May 2015

Agenda

• Introduction• Research• Pedagogy• Business models

INTRODUCTION

QUESTION: If SOPA/PIPA had been passed into U.S. law in 2002, would Wikipedia exist today? If either law had passed in 2012, would Wikipedia exist in 2022? Why or why not? Discuss.

If you cannot answer that question, you are

not literate nor are you in control of your life—

even if you think you are.

Back

grou

nd

cMOOCs from 2008MOOCs were … were intended to be a challenge to

the traditional notion of a course (Jenny Mackness)

• Explicit pedagogical perspective– Social constructivist, dialogic, actor networks

• Distributed, open source platform components– Wikis, WordPress, Moodle

• Intentional social media conversations– Twitter, Facebook, Blogs

• Open challenge to institutions– Access, environment, IPR, assessment

xMOOCs from 2011When the cavalry charge is being led by the most

prestigious higher ed institutions … it is hard to imagine it will all blow over… (Bon Stewart)

• Tacit pedagogical perspective– Instructivist, pragmatic, realist, – Authentic: employment oriented

• Consolidated platforms– Incidental social media

• Institutional counter-position– Elite, neo-colonial (?)

Our MOOC• First Steps into Learning and Teaching in Higher

Education (FSLT12, FSLT13)

OER

Over 200 signed up• 60 participated throughout the 6

weeks• We reached our constituency• 14 undertook the assessment and

received a certificate• Participants were from 24 different

countries including Australia, Canada, India, South Africa, as well as many European countries &US

Research continuing• How people learned• Differential participation• Design principles

Eval

uatio

n

Discourses around higher education are:

“… a field of competition for the legitimate exercise of symbolic

violence,

… an arena of conflict between rival principles of legitimacy, and

competition for political, economic and cultural power

(Bourdieu 1993, 121)

RESEARCHhttp://openbrookes.net/firststeps12/research/dissemination/

Question

• At your table, what has the MOOC experience been?

• Card sort

• Native – Immigrant (Prensky 2001)

• Visitor – Resident(White & Le Cornu 2011)

• Voyeur – Flaneur (boyd 2011)

• Liminal participant - Skilled orienteer(Waite et al 2013)

MOOCs as threshold concept

Navigation, transformation, community

• Opening a portal to understanding previously unknown knowledge

• Preceded by troublesome knowledge • Liminality: “A suspended state of partial

understanding or stuck place”

(Meyer & Land 2003, Perkins 2006)

Navigation

New participants felt overwhelmed by technology, multiple channels & perceived need to multi-task.

Experienced MOOCers were judicious about planning their route and orienting their participation.

Transformation

Ultimately learners experienced a transformative shift …

but it required reflection on practice, community support and self-organization

Community

New learners needed time to determine their audience and core community…

and to realize reciprocal relationships.

MOOCs as third space

• Rapidly hybridising novel expressions of higher education (Roberts, et al 2013)– cMOOCs, xMOOCs, pMOOCs, etcMOOCs– Intermediate forms, syntheses, compromises or

novel solutions, arise

• Proxy for the historical conversation about continuing, professional, open, online, distance and blended learning (Stewart 2012)

PEDAGOGIES

Pedagogies

Structured, dialogic, conversational & connected activity-based pedagogies of engagement

• self, peer and tutor feedback• Socially constructed

– knowledge, community, roles, rules, tools, actors and outcomes• Learner-centered, participatory design for inclusion,

– access, diversity, equality problems remain• Scholarly and professional

– critical reflection– academic credit & marking criteria

• Live sessions with special guests• Intentional social media conversations• Technology supported, open platform

• A focus on the course and the platform ignores the experience of the MOOC learner

• MOOCs offer an unlimited number of possibilities for hybridization because, whatever else, they offer participants the opportunity to fashion their own learning according to their needs.

• Aggregate– Filter, select and gather information

meaningful to the individual,

• Remix– Interpret this information bringing

one’s own perspective and insights,

• Repurpose– Refashion it to suit individual

purposes, and then

• Feed forward– Share it with others, to learn from

each otherThe other kind of MOOC embraces a simple business ideology, and as such is almost the antithesis to [this] kind.Peter Sloep http://bit.ly/LBwImp

• Explicit pedagogical perspective– Social constructivist, dialogic,

actor networks

• Distributed, OS platform– WordPress, Moodle, Wikis

• Intentional social media conversations

Appr

oach

Open Academic Practice

BUSINESS MODELS

• Bonk (2013) identifies 22 types of MOOC with 20 Leadership Principles and 12 business models.

• The numbers are changing and boundaries are fuzzy.

• There is stratification going on at the innovative end of traditional educational institutions.

A bubble?

Andy Wharhol, 1986

• Monetize– Accreditation– Tuition– Publications– Recruitment– ???

• Or… sell picks and shovels to the Klondikers– MOOCs as platforms

Cowboy economics?

Forget

the massive?

Reasons for developing OOCs

• Improving the global learner experience• Fulfilling the university’s social/global/community

educative mission• Enhancing reputation and increasing visibility• Showcase own expertise• Sell books• Increasing reach– Better serve (retain) existing clients– Attract new clients– Earn more revenue

Question

• What would your reasons for be for developing open online “courses”?

• Card sort

Thank you

Dr George RobertsOCSLD, Oxford Brookes University

May 2013groberts@brookes.ac.uk

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