I am not quite certain where from my curiosity with the MOOC concept springs, but I seem to find myself spending much time lately considering their strengths and weaknesses. A recent article in Boston’s Globe exploring the serious resources that Harvard is committing to refine the concept caught my attention. It builds exquisitely on last week’s discussion around Dr Dominic Bryan’s FutureLearn course.
The Boston Globe’s ‘Harvard goes all in for online courses‘ gives a privileged view of some of the depth of attention and of nuance that is going into what is a rapidly evolving space. Despite widespread scepticism and outright dismissal from the overly simplistic ‘we are giving away for free something we have been charging for’ to the microscopic completion rates, more thoughtful studies are identifying where the concept is addressing serious flaws in our current academic delivery mechanisms.
I was particularly drawn to the significant amount of attention being lavished on producing production-quality course instruction. The dedication of professional video production teams and adaptation of cinemagraphic techniques should not come as a great surprise. We have long been aware that today’s students are bombarded with content from far more engaging means than the in-class lecturer.
HarvardX is the Harvard hub of the edX MOOCwork. There are varying contributions by the participating institutions. What is particularly striking when looking to the Harvard contribution is the provision of a dedicated production suite along with accompanying professional production staff. This cements the necessity of providing this high quality material. So what drives Harvard University to continue to make an investment in their online courseware? The article identifies 3 specific objectives:
- Staying competitive with other Ivy league institutions;
- Improving Education as a general ethos; and
- Increasing Outreach to sectors that Harvard would not be able to address otherwise.
One to the more immediate benefits they are realising is the repurposing of the material to bring elements from online delivery into regular classroom delivery and utilising the material available online to dedicate class time to discussion in a face-to-face venue. Both of which bring the MOOC investment back to the more traditional forms of teaching and raise the bar reinforcing objective 2.
The article highlights one of the additional MOOC trends being brought back to the traditional – that of participation being graded – something that seems to be met with some pushback from participants themselves. Interesting. We call out for greater engagement and participatory instruction, but don’t want to actually have evaluation based on it.
One of the continuing realisations for any instructor engaging in the MOOCspace today is the very high workload for instructors. Presumably something that may change over time, but also reflects the commitment of leading edge instructors to leading edge techniques. The challenge Harvard is facing in this is in defining new compensation models to reflect this resource dedication.
In addition to studio production it is crucial to note that Harvard is also dedicating an educational resource development team that translates the ideas for courseware and modules into HarvardX delivery from a marketing perspective and building of the complete edX package. This sounds like it is turning the teaching process into a seriously professional production process. What does this mean for less well-funded institutions? Can they compete in this new ecosystem? This is especially true as people consider the value of the MOOC as a means to offer more personalised instruction with delivery responding to student needs and wants and adapting to them.
Needless to say, the future will see rapid evolution of the MOOC model and addressing that original rather shallow complaint about vacuous revenue models, edX members are exploring how looking to the long tail of online learners and offering small discretionary packages of one-on-one time with an instructor for pricing similar to the AppStore can revolutionise educational funding models.
A fascinating and recommended read. The Boston Globe original Article.