article thumbnail

In China, Online Degrees on Hold, Even as MOOCs Rise

Edsurge

In fact, the country has no institution that is approved to deliver online degrees, even though it has moved rapidly to embrace MOOCs, free or low-cost online courses offered to millions throughout the country. advances in online pedagogy, such as flipped classrooms and MOOCs.

MOOC 142
article thumbnail

A Decade of MOOCs: A Review of Stats and Trends for Large-Scale Online Courses in 2021

Edsurge

In 2021, two of the biggest MOOC providers had an “exit” event. Ten years ago, more than 300,000 learners were taking the three free Stanford courses that kicked off the modern MOOC movement. It led me to call 2020 the “Second Year of the MOOC.” MOOCs are now no longer massive.

MOOC 208
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

Get Your MOOC On!

The Web20Classroom

Wikipedia defines MOOC as "an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user fora that help build a community for students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs)." Simply, a MOOC is a online class you take that might have 100''s or 1000''s of people are participating at a time. Have a suggestion for another MOOC?

MOOC 196
article thumbnail

The Future of MOOCs Must Be Decolonized

Edsurge

So much so, the New York Times even dubbed 2012 the “ Year of the MOOC.” Advocates for the courses would point a finger at the unaffordability of traditional education, promising that MOOCs could offer cheaper, more innovative alternatives. Since their glory days only a few years ago, MOOCs have been on the receiving end of much critique, and the false promises of democratizing education through simply connecting to the internet have been severely slashed.

MOOC 158
article thumbnail

The Second Year of The MOOC: 2020 Saw a Rush to Large-Scale Online Courses

Edsurge

This was the year that more people learned what a MOOC is. As millions suddenly found themselves with free time on their hands during the pandemic, many turned to online courses—especially, to free courses known as MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses.

MOOC 184
article thumbnail

Will COVID-19 Lead to Another MOOC Moment?

Edsurge

Large-scale courses known as MOOCs were invented to get free or low-cost education to people who could not afford or get access to traditional options. Duke University was one of the first institutions to draw on MOOCs in response to the novel coronavirus. Coursera decided to expand free access to a wider audience, for a limited time, so that they can make use of MOOC content in their teaching. Other MOOC providers are making similar offers.

MOOC 127
article thumbnail

The Metamorphosis of MOOCs

Edsurge

At a recent meeting of educational technology policy advisors, a well-informed university CIO casually declared that MOOCs were history. Increasingly, MOOCs are being packaged into series of courses with a non-degree credential being offered to those who successfully complete the series. Perhaps it is employers who should be the most supportive of the latest MOOC developments. Just like stand-alone MOOCs, most learners—over 80 percent—already had a Bachelors or higher degree.

MOOC 117
article thumbnail

MOOCs, MOOCs, MOOCs!

Some guy named Rae...

MOOCs, MOOCs, MOOCs! said in the cadence of “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia“…) I am *so* tired of hearing about MOOCs these days. There are cMOOCs and xMOOCs and blended MOOCs, oh my. There are small MOOCs — called SPOCs, standing for Small Private Online Classes — which defy all logic because, umm… doesn’t the first letter in MOOC […]. Teaching & Learning academic tech innovation MOOCs

MOOC 40
article thumbnail

Year of MOOC-based Degrees: A Review of MOOC Stats and Trends in 2018

Edsurge

In the seven years since colleges and companies first started experimenting with large-scale online courses known as MOOCs, more than 100 million people have given them a try—though how they are used keeps changing. Two big trends dominated the MOOC landscape this year. First, despite continued slowdown in the growth of new users, MOOC platforms are seeing an increase in paying customers (and revenues). Here is a complete list of MOOC-based degrees.

MOOC 140
article thumbnail

2U Buys edX for $800M, In Surprise End to Nonprofit MOOC Provider Started by MIT and Harvard

Edsurge

The deal is a sign that the once-distinct lines between MOOCs, online degree programs and on-campus programs have blurred, argues Sean Gallagher, founder and executive director of Northeastern University’s Center for the Future of Higher Education and Talent Strategy.

MOOC 202
article thumbnail

Are MOOCs really dead?

Neo LMS

MOOCs have been considered for a very long time a great way of learning, because they are useful, diverse, surrounded by communities and mostly free. However, lately MOOCs have faced several challenges and criticisms such as its heavy reliance on user-generated content which creates a rather chaotic learning environment, and the mere fact that digital literacy is almost always a prerequisite if someone is going to take an open online course.

MOOC 150
article thumbnail

For Best Results, Pair MOOCs With In-Person Support

Edsurge

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) transfixed higher education in the early 2010s, so much so that The New York Times dubbed 2012 "The Year of the MOOC." That year, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology launched edX, a joint effort to provide interactive, enriching MOOCs to a global audience and make world-class information accessible to all. MOOCs don't require students to sit in a classroom at a fixed time; students can take MOOCs when and where they want.

MOOC 145
article thumbnail

Will the Pandemic Lead More Colleges to Offer Credit for MOOCs? Coursera is Pushing for It.

Edsurge

That’s because it might make the idea of adopting MOOC content acceptable to professors “skeptical about the integrity of online education,” he adds. Education Technology MOOCs Coronavirus Digital Credentials

MOOC 179
article thumbnail

How Blockbuster MOOCs Could Shape the Future of Teaching

Edsurge

After all, so-called MOOCs, or massive open online courses, were meant to open education to as many learners as possible, and in many ways they are more like books (digital ones, packed with videos and interactive quizzes) than courses. The colleges and companies offering MOOCs can be pretty guarded these days about releasing specific numbers on how many people enroll or pay for a “verified certificate” or microcredential showing they took the course.

MOOC 162
article thumbnail

Article in Journal ‘Science’ Argues MOOC Participation is Declining as Providers Pivot

Edsurge

What lessons can be learned from the rise and pivot of MOOCs, those large-scale online courses that proponents said would disrupt higher education? An article this week in the prestigious journal ‘Science’ explores that question, digging into six years of data from MOOCs offered by Harvard University and MIT on the edX platform launched by the two universities. In fact, completion rates for MOOCs in the study declined. So MOOCs have not disrupted higher education.

MOOC 154
article thumbnail

Stop Asking About Completion Rates: Better Questions to Ask About MOOCs in 2019

Edsurge

As an instructional designer who has been building MOOCs for the past five years, I’ve been asked this question more times than I count. MOOCs have been called abysmal , disappointing failures. The average completion rate for MOOCs (including the ones I design) hovers between 5-15 percent. As we move towards 2019, it’s time to get clearer about this difference and start asking smarter questions about what MOOCs can and should be expected to accomplish.

MOOC 141
article thumbnail

Are SPOCs a better option for online education than MOOCs?

Neo LMS

MOOCs: high aspirations and higher disappointments. The above idea is a noble one and massive open online courses, better known as MOOCs , are thought to be the solution to worldwide access to higher education. MOOCs promise each and every student in this world a front seat in any prestigious university course they have any interest to attend, for free. The online connectivity may not be a really important problem, but MOOCs faced a wall of other, more important issues.

MOOC 154
article thumbnail

A Proposal to Put the ‘M’ Back in MOOCs

Edsurge

MOOCs have evolved over the past five years from a virtual version of a classroom course to an experience that feels more like a Netflix library of teaching videos. One important benefit of the first MOOCs was that they started at fixed times, like traditional college courses, which meant that large numbers of people were sharing an experience and posting questions and answers to forums. The on-demand MOOC trend has led to a drastic reduction in forum activity within MOOC cohorts.

MOOC 109
article thumbnail

5 Ways MOOC-Based Degrees Are Different From Other Online Degrees

Edsurge

But in recent years a new type of online degree has emerged, born of partnerships between elite universities and the platforms that support MOOCs, such as Coursera, FutureLearn, and edX. The first of these new MOOC degree programs emerged at Georgia Tech, which partnered with Udacity in 2013 to create a low-cost online master’s program in computer science. Since then, more and more degrees have run through MOOC channels. Education Technology MOOCs Postsecondary Learning

MOOC 129
article thumbnail

MOOCs Find Their Audience: Professional Learners and Universities

Edsurge

The media started calling this space MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses, a term coopted from a 2008 experiment. The narrative in early days of MOOC space was around disruption of universities. Not all MOOC providers shared this narrative, but this was the one that the media stuck with it. He thinks that MOOCs may not have disrupted the education market, but they are disrupting the labor market. Education Technology MOOCs Postsecondary Learning

MOOC 126
article thumbnail

600+ Free MOOCs from Leading Universities

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

This is basically a collection of 700 MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) offered for free by some of the leading universities all.read more. MOOCsMay 2, 2017 Here is another important resource from Open Culture.

MOOC 54
article thumbnail

Much Ado About MOOCs: Where Are We in the Evolution of Online Courses?

Edsurge

A lot has changed since 2012 or, the year the New York Times dubbed the "Year of the MOOC." Today, many MOOC providers now charge a fee. And popular providers like Coursera and edX are increasingly partnering with colleges and universities to offer MOOC-based degrees online. So, seven years after the “Year of the MOOC,” we’re wondering: Where are these courses and companies today? So the rate at which new users are coming into the MOOC space is decreasing.

MOOC 136
article thumbnail

What if MOOCs Revolutionize Education After All?

Edsurge

And she makes the case for why free online courses like hers—which are known as Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs—might still lead to a revolution in higher education, even though the hype around them has died down. Some people might even wonder whether MOOCs are even still around since you don’t hear much about these courses today. As someone still teaching one of these, where do you see MOOCs these days? . Some of those San Jose State MOOCs showed very good results.

MOOC 136
article thumbnail

Udacity Official Declares MOOCs ‘Dead’ (Though the Company Still Offers Them)

Edsurge

Udacity helped popularize the idea of offering college-level courses online to anyone for free, a format known as MOOCs (for Massive Open Online Courses). But this week a Udacity official called MOOCs “dead,” leading to questions about what that means for one of the company’s offerings (which still include free MOOCs). It was Udacity vice president Clarissa Shen who this week said “they are dead,” when talking about MOOCs in an interview with The Economic Times in India.

MOOC 146
article thumbnail

What If No One Seeks Credit for a Credit-Eligible MOOC?

Edsurge

News that Arizona State University and edX have archived 10 of their 14 Global Freshman Academy courses raises questions about the viability and purpose of credit-eligible MOOCs. She suggests that first-year students may need more academic and social supports and wraparound services than a la carte MOOCs provide. It’s not the first time students seemingly have rejected opportunities to gain college credit for MOOCs.

MOOC 111
article thumbnail

MOOCs Started Out Completely Free. Where Are They Now?

Edsurge

I took one of the very first MOOCs, and back then the videos, assignments, and certificates were all free. As MOOC providers focussed on finding a business model, they started putting certain aspects of the experience behind a paywall, hoping to get more people to pay. MOOCs went from free to free to audit (nevermind that the concept of auditing a class is completely foreign in most parts of the world). So here’s a summary of what free means for the four biggest MOOC players.

MOOC 117
article thumbnail

Online Degrees Slowdown: A Review of MOOC Stats and Trends in 2019

Edsurge

Last year, MOOC providers announced about 30 new online degrees. This wave of activity and spending by MOOC providers and universities gave me a feeling of deja vu: it reminded me of the 2012 MOOC hype. The total number of MOOC-based degrees has now grown to 50.

MOOC 91
article thumbnail

In China’s Silicon Valley, Edtech Starts at the ‘MOOC Times Building’

Edsurge

One sign of that: There’s a 22-story tower in the country’s capital officially named the “MOOC Times Building” that houses a government-supported incubator for edtech companies. Most of the occupants offer products or services in online learning, though not necessarily massive open online courses or MOOCs, despite being the building's namesake. But MOOCs were trending upward back in 2014 when the education incubator was established, so it made a catchy name for the building.

MOOC 136
article thumbnail

With ‘MicroBachelors’ Program, EdX Tries Again to Sell MOOCs For Undergraduate Credit

Edsurge

The nonprofit MOOC platform edX, originally started by MIT and Harvard University at a time when pundits predicted large-scale online courses could replace college for some people, is trying yet another new approach, launching the first of what it calls a “MicroBachelors” program.

MOOC 110
article thumbnail

More MOOC Madness? UK’s FutureLearn Raises $65M to Expand Global Footprint

Edsurge

Less than a week after its announced lead in Coursera’s $103 million Series E round , SEEK is at it again with £50 million (about $65 million) in London-based MOOC platform FutureLearn. FutureLearn launched with a dozen university partners in 2012, the same year that other MOOC platform providers—namely Coursera, edX and Udacity—also launched and whose growth have somewhat overshadowed FutureLearn’s (at least here among U.S.

MOOC 120
article thumbnail

#DLNchat: How Have MOOCs Impacted Approaches to Student Learning?

Edsurge

Has the MOOC revolution come and gone? Or will the principles of the MOOC movement continue to influence higher ed? On Tuesday, April 10 the #DLNchat community got together to discuss and debate: How Have MOOCs Impacted Approaches to Student Learning? How many MOOCs have you signed up for and how many have you taken?” Many admitted their completion rates were unimpressive, which may be representative for MOOC users overall. In MOOCs it’s all about teaching.

MOOC 83
article thumbnail

MOOCs Find a New Audience with On-Campus Students

Edsurge

To understand the concept, it’s important to remember how much MOOCs have changed since they emerged about six years ago to great fanfare. In recent months, some colleges have made arrangements with the MOOC platforms they work with to let students and staff get free access to online certificates and microcredentials created by the universities. He imagines that some professors may assign parts of MOOCs as homework, or as a way to help students get up to speed on technical courses.

MOOC 131
article thumbnail

MOOCs: the big…err, massive…new thing

Mobile Musings

ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Technology (L&L) just published an article I wrote about MOOCs. In particular, there are two new MOOCs that are particularly well suited to K-12 professional learning. It includes a fairly traditional program of webinars and readings, along with experiments via the mechanical mooc and G+ communities. (We Best of all, these two MOOCs are both OPEN (in a variety of senses, including open licensed) and CONNECTIVIST.

MOOC 114
article thumbnail

Still MOOCing Along.

EdTechSandyK

Image Source Used Under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND License Week 4 of the Foundations of Virtual Instruction MOOC I started on June 30th is wrapping up today. By this time next week, I will hopefully have successfully completed my first MOOC. Quick Updates In case you read my post on starting this MOOC , or if you decide to go back and read it, I''ll update a few of my early observations: The 2 to 4 hours per week of work was a pretty accurate estimate.

MOOC 72
article thumbnail

George Siemens and David Wiley Join Forces for a MOOC About Open Education

Edsurge

Since the New York Times named 2012 the year of massive open online courses (MOOCs), millions have flocked to platforms offering them such as edX and Coursera. The six-week long MOOC will touch on topics including open educational resources (OER), open pedagogy and practice, open knowledge and open research. I spoke with Siemens and Wiley about their upcoming course to get a few answers before the MOOC launches. Ekowo: Why this MOOC? It’s because they’re MOOCs.

MOOC 120
article thumbnail

Are SPOCs a better option for online education than MOOCs?

Neo LMS

MOOCs: high aspirations and higher disappointments. The above idea is a noble one and massive open online courses, better known as MOOCs , are thought to be the solution to worldwide access to higher education. MOOCs promise each and every student in this world a front seat in any prestigious university course they have any interest to attend, for free. The online connectivity may not be a really important problem, but MOOCs faced a wall of other, more important issues.

MOOC 150
article thumbnail

Another Helpful Resource of Educational Podcasts, Audio Books, and MOOCs

Educational Technology and Mobile Learning

In today's post we want to bring your attention to this excellent educational resource that, we believe, should definitely make it into your digital teaching toolkit. Open Culture, for those of you.read more

MOOC 77
article thumbnail

Pop-Up MOOC – Engagement in a Time of Polarization

ProfHacker

a MOOC on engagement in a time of polarization. But you can read more about this “pop-up” mooc, as well as sign up through Davidson Now , who are providing the infrastructure for the course. It only runs for two weeks, from February 12-26, 2018, and it will certainly be an active and engaging mooc, which I am also excited about, to see how moocs can be done differently. Profession Teaching MOOC

MOOC 74
article thumbnail

MOOCs are No Longer Massive. And They Serve Different Audiences Than First Imagined.

Edsurge

MOOCs have gone from a buzzword to a punchline, especially among professors who were skeptical of these “massive open online courses” in the first place. MOOCs started in around 2011 when a few Stanford professors put their courses online and made them available to anyone who wanted to take them. The New York Times later declared 2012 as the ‘year of the MOOC,’ and columnists said the virtual courses would bring a revolution. And that's what MOOCS have.

MOOC 139
article thumbnail

So I'm Taking a MOOC.

EdTechSandyK

Image Used With Permission Under a Creative Commons License Late last week I was innocently checking my Twitter feed, and I saw an announcement for a MOOC called Foundations of Virtual Instruction. I signed up for the verified certificate trial so I could evaluate the quality of the course and my likelihood of completing it (I''ve started a couple of MOOCs in the past and not made it through.) Based on my experience thus far, I think Summer 2014 might see me complete my first MOOC.

MOOC 67
article thumbnail

The Flip Side of Abysmal MOOC Completion Rates? Discovering the Most Tenacious Learners

Edsurge

Usman Khaliq was an engineering student in northeastern Pakistan when he took his first MOOC. complete multiple MOOCs. MOOCs were a vetting mechanism for Usman, allowing both his talent and grit to rise to attention and connecting him to an opportunity halfway around the world. The MOOC movement is frequently disparaged because completion rates are abysmally low. For a growing number of organizations, MOOCs have become a new way to identify talent.

MOOC 111
article thumbnail

Fostering Peer Connections to Make MOOCs Personal

The PL2C Blog

The Friday Institute and Oak Foundation seek to end this anachronism with the Learning Differences MOOC for Educators (MOOC-Ed). Using the guides provided in the course, VPLCs provide opportunities for larger groups of teachers to discuss the impact of changes in practice based on what they learned in the MOOC-Ed; to discover what other peers found was effective, what was not, and why; and to share questions, concerns, and affirmations about their experiences.

MOOC 40
article thumbnail

The Second Wave of MOOC Hype is Here, and it’s Online Degrees

Edsurge

In the past year or so there's been a flurry of announcements from the big MOOC providers involving new degree programs based around their online courses. Earlier this year, for instance, Coursera announced six new degrees , including the first-ever MOOC-based Bachelors. So far, ten universities have announced MOOC-based online degrees, and together they offer a total of 25 different degrees. A steady stream of articles heralded MOOCs as the disruptor of higher education.

MOOC 112