MIT Hybrid Masters

I just think of MOOCs as being self-taught. You go through the course on your own with no teacher, no discussion, no classmates. Then there's the exam or whatever form of assessment is used. You pay for the test in order to get the credits. Kinda like a CLEP, Kinda like University of London.

 

I guess I'd argue against the idea that "open access" = free. After all, there are Open Universities all over the world but in those cases the "open" refers to the admissions standards. It has nothing to do with cost.

 

MOOCs are massive open online courses. I think. But, maybe somebody will correcxt me if I'm wrong.

 

At this stage the lines are blurring significantly.

MOOCs aren't necessarily self-paced without an instructor. I have had courses on Coursera that received quite a bit of handling and quite a bit of interaction.

To me, the feature of a MOOC is that it is, as the name suggests, "Massive." Hundreds or thousands of people can take the same course at the same time. If I take a course at PennFoster, thousands might be taking it, but we are almost certainly on different schedules. And I can take a course as part of a cohort at almost any university with an online program but those are typically limited.

But it started out with learning for the sake of learning. Then we added verified certificates. Now we're adding college credits and, what is essentially, a Graduate Certificate.

The platforms are also an important thing. If I take a course from MIT on Coursera or EdX, I'm going to have the same general experience taking a course at the University of Chicago on the same platform. Switching between the schools themselves wouldn't be so neat and orderly.

So, there's what MOOCs were intended to be from inception and then there's the practical reality of what MOOCs bring to the world of higher education.

Kind of reminds me of how, when the whole Edward Snowden thing first went down, they focused pretty heavily on how he went to a handful of colleges and universities and basically cherry picked the courses he felt he needed rather than earn a degree.

My uncle was the same way. He studied at some of the coolest places and graduated from none of them.

That said, when I think "MOOC" I think Coursera and EdX. I think cheap. I think easy to sign up. And I think multiple course providers.

Sites like Udacity and Pluralsight are not, in my opinion, MOOCs. They are subscription based learning services. They absolutely have a place in learning but calling them MOOCs is sloppy (you know, like saying regionally accredited universities are "diploma mills" despite them having low graduation rates).