3. Goal: To improve economics by reducing cost or increasing revenues. 29 percent of all institutions claimed that this goal was critical in determining whether or not to offer MOOCs.
Accomplished? No. According to the report, to date, MOOC production and delivery have negatively affected faculty time and financial investments from institutions, leading many stakeholders in education to acknowledge that the current expenditures on MOOC development cannot continue indefinitely without financial justification.
Solutions: As the report emphasizes, MOOCs as an education technology are still in their infancy, with potential to one day improve economics as institutional structure and practice change as well. For example, potential cost savings could come from reusing MOOC materials, but the technology used to create the MOOC must be easily customizable if needed. Also, sharing MOOC materials across instructors and campuses could lead to cost savings, but logistical issues such as how tuition and credits are transferred (and a shift in culture away from creation of content at each site) would need to be resolved. Concerning additional revenue, institutions would need to offer credit for MOOC completion or charge tuition, but quality standards for MOOCs (for assessments, especially) would need to improve. Institutions could also charge licensing fees for use of MOOC materials or data by other institutions. Fees for additional services offered to MOOC participants—for example, online tutoring or face-to-face instruction with a local instructor—could also generate revenue.
4. Goal: Improving educational outcomes. 38 percent of institutions said that they expected MOOCs to lead to an improvement in educational outcomes, with some believing improvement would occur directly within the MOOC format and others believing improvement would happen indirectly through the transfer of new strategies and techniques to on-campus teaching.
Accomplished? Unknown; hard data is needed. According to many interviewees, “the most significant impact of MOOCs has been on the motivation they have created for instructors to rethink how they teach,” states the report,” with many “intransigent” faculty members reconsidering teaching styles. However, no hard evidence currently exists that MOOCs improve learning experiences. The report highlights that current studies are often conflicting as to whether or not educational outcomes have improved.
Solutions: Though adaptive learning technologies have clear potential to provide accurate data feedback on student outcomes, “it is clear that current turnaround time for analyzing MOOC platform data is too long to allow for even midcourse corrections,” says the report, “let alone to provide just-in-time customization for individual participants.” Moving forward, coordination and collaboration among content experts, instructors, researchers, instructional designers, and programmers will be essential to reach progress towards personalized and adaptive learning features for better outcomes.
5. Goal: To bring innovation to teaching and learning. 19 percent of all study participants said MOOCs would help innovate pedagogy and other models of higher education to better prepare for an uncertain future.
Accomplished? Yes. Participants in the study note that MOOCs have promoted many faculty members to engage in new educational activities, and that strategies employed online—frequent assessments and short lectures interspersed with questions—are subsequently being used on campus.
Advice: Take tips from online learning experts. Some report participants said that many MOOC developers are “reinventing and re-learning the missteps and successes of online learning and failing to take advantage of scale, the most characteristic aspect of MOOCs that differentiates them from other online education.” Also, measuring the value of innovation is hard unless it’s tied to tangible objectives, says the report. “While a few institutions are developing metrics to assess the impact of MOOC-related innovations on various objectives, most are not yet making any rigorous attempt to assess whether MOOCs are more or less effective than other strategies to achieve their goals.”
6. Goal: To research teaching and learning. This goal was stated by 18 percent of participants, mainly research universities. This goal refers specifically to work that is conducted by individuals who consider themselves researchers first and aim to publish their work.
Accomplished? Yes. Several types of research have been, and are being, conducted that use MOOCs as the vehicle for delivering data on participant behavior and performance, says the report.
Advice: “A great deal of effort has been expended on trying to improve participant engagement and completion of MOOCs and less effort on determining whether participants actually gain skills or knowledge from the courses,” concluded the report. More of a focus on whether or not students learned something, rather than on simple completion of a MOOC equating having learned something, should be emphasized in research.
For much more detailed information, including critical analysis of potential solutions, read the full report, “Why Do Institutions Offer MOOCs?” here.
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