George Siemens and the University of Texas LINK Lab recently organized a symposium to discuss the future of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Higher Education as imagined in the year 2030. Attending universities included DavidsonX, ColgateX, Stanford OpenedX, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUSTx), GeorgetownX, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3MX) and Athabasca University. According to media, in less than 3 years MOOCs have gone through the entire product life cycle: from introduction to growth, maturity to decline. As representatives of Cornell University we were there to take a slightly different approach. Now that the initial hype over MOOC’s has declined, we questioned, what can we say about the impact of “the idea of MOOCs” on higher education? As George Siemens pointed out, a MOOC is not a thing, but an idea. And while the MOOC as we know it today may look entirely different in the future, we believe that the concept of the MOOC will continue to be part of the greater educational experience for years to come. In the meantime, all universities, no matter their size, seem to be struggling with some of the same common issues: resources, legal and procedural problems, and long-term strategic vision. As we continue to develop and evolve the Cornell platform, facing the challenges and affordances of these massive open online courses, we highlight and share a few of the specific use cases taken from our collegiate friends and colleagues:
- HKUSTX is entering the MOOC landscape as a way to expand international student exchange. By taking the course before a student arrives in Hong Kong it can decrease the time (and cost) for a student to travel abroad. When the student arrives in Hong Kong he/she already has the knowledge needed to “hit the ground running” and dig right into research.
- HarvardX has created a course specifically for their alumni called HarvardX for Alumni. A focus of HarvardX is on enhancing on campus courses and expanding opportunities for global learners with courses including: Improving Global Health (the top three papers are published in a journal) and AnatomyX which includes a virtual operating room to observe surgical treatment.
- ColgateX offered a course called The Advent of the Atomic Bomb where students and alumni discussed content and worked together creating a cross generational community of learners.
- DavidsonX newest MOOC has a focus on transdisciplinary conversation about HIV/AIDS in science, writing, journalism visual art, drama, and popular culture.
- UT Arlington and Ahtabasca are co-teaching a course on Data, Analytics and Learning using a combination of the edX platform and Domain of One’s Own. This is an experimental course offering numerous learning pathways and distributed conversations. An added bonus is free use of the visual analytics tool tableau.
If you are an educator at Cornell interested in investigating a MOOC for your own teaching practice, please find our request for proposals here.
For deeper readings into this issue, a summary of the symposium can be found here. Additional materials can be found online at the MOOC Research Initiative.
