

MOOCs are closed platforms and probably doomed - davmre
http://lemire.me/blog/archives/2014/12/24/moocs-are-closed-platforms-and-probably-doomed/

======
finid
> If your course requires that prospective students “register” to access the
> content, then it is not an open course. It might be an online course, it
> might even be massive, but it is not open.

That's the last sentence in the 4th paragraph of the article.

"Open" can indeed mean a lot of things. In this case of MOOCs, it just means
anybody with an Internet connection can register and take any course - for
free. Coursera and edX are prime examples.

Making registration a prerequisite for taking an online course does not
invalidate it's openness. It's mostly an administrative thing. So the author's
argument does not hold.

~~~
quadrangle
edX meets certain definitions for Open that Coursera does not, in terms of
licensing of content and software.

~~~
desdiv
What's the percentage of edX courses that are actually CC licensed?

As a quick and unscientific experiment, I checked out the 12 courses listed on
the edX.org homepage and none of them were CC licensed.

With Google I found a few CC licensed edX courses [0:2], but looks like
they're the rare minority.

[0] [https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-aeronautical-
enginee...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-aeronautical-engineering-
delftx-ae-1110x)

[1] [https://www.edx.org/course/business-its-environment-
overview...](https://www.edx.org/course/business-its-environment-overview-
oecx-bp111x)

[2] [https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-functional-
programmi...](https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-functional-programming-
delftx-fp101x)

------
aroberge
The author of this post starts with an incorrect definition and build his
argument from it: "Open" in MOOC does not refer to the software used but the
fact that anyone can take those courses (open enrolment).

------
nickstefan12
I would argue that the problem is signaling. Where and what you studied in
school are signals employers use to rank you against your peers. IE going to
Harvard signals that you are the elk that got into Harvard. No one really
cares what you studied there. This is the primary function of college in the
employment landscape: signaling. Very few people go to college for the actual
learning (they go to get the signaling that will allow them to get a job).

MOOCS would need to get into signaling and have employers take their signal
seriously. I hate to sound classist, but unfortunately MOOCS lack of
selectivity means they don't signal as much as a college with a low acceptance
rate.

I myself did not go to an elite school, and realize that the above is a very
broad generalization...

------
tarr11
The argument seems to be that MOOCs are the online equivalent of lectures.
Therefore, since lectures do not seem to hold much financial value to
customers, MOOCs will not either, since they consist mostly of online
lectures.

Though this may be true in practice for some MOOCs, I suspect that MOOCs are
attempting to become the online equivalent of a university, rather than just
lectures.

With an online university, you are paying for the course curriculum, online
tools, office hours, graded results, certification, social network and the
brand of the institution. The combination of those things holds more value
than the lecture itself.

~~~
visarga
> With an online university, you are paying for the course curriculum, online
> tools, office hours, graded results, certification, social network and the
> brand of the institution.

An essential thing missing from MOOCs is the feeling of being personally
supervised and accountable to someone (our teachers or their assistants). It
might seem just emotional fluff, but it is essential in getting people through
long courses.

I think MOOCs should be paired with in-person supervision, the kind offered by
a coach or an educational advisor. Other people should still be involved in
the loop, it must not degenerate into a solely man-computer thing. MOOCs need
more emotional grounding to help decrease the atrocious drop rate.

~~~
ansible
_MOOCs need more emotional grounding to help decrease the atrocious drop
rate._

I see many people express concern about the drop rate of MOOCs, but I haven't
seen any good arguments as to why it is a problem.

I've signed up for several courses, and not finished one of them! So what? I
didn't cost me anything, and I didn't hurt anyone by taking up a spot in the
class that would instead have gone to a more deserving student.

In a couple cases, it is simply that I've got a more than full-time job, and I
just don't always have the time and energy to work on a class too. If I'd been
paying money for it, I probably would have taken it more seriously, but oh
well. I still learned something from most of them, and it was in general worth
my time to at least listen to the lectures and look at the homework
assignments.

I'm still working through one of them... slowly, interleaving it with all the
other things occupying my free time.

------
corndoge
> _we live in an era where Amazon can deliver a textbook on any topic directly
> to your door within 48 hours. In this era, it is much better to sell
> diplomas and degrees. Unlike lectures, they have tangible financial value
> for the students_

This is too true. Anyone sufficiently motivated may teach generally any
subject to themselves to whatever degree of proficiency they desire. This is
especially true of CS. The degree, not the education, is what you're buying.

------
noelwelsh
I don't entirely agree with the assertion that you cannot charge for content.
E.g. "It is probably harder to make a living selling lectures than it is as a
journalist, and it has become nearly impossible to live off journalism."

I made a substantial chunk of change this year delivering training. The
difference is people can directly connect training to revenue. In my case I'm
teaching Scala, where my course attendees either need it for their job, and
know that getting Scala on their resume will open up some very well paying
gigs. In this situation people will pay for a directed introduction to a
topic, and also to clear the time on their schedule.

The problem faced by good Universities face is that they are teaching
foundations not ephemera, and most people have difficulty connecting the dots
from learning, say, mathematics, to revenue. Which is a real shame, because
foundations are far more valuable in the long term.

FWIW, our Scala courses try to sneak in foundational material while no-one is
looking. :)

------
zitterbewegung
Playing devli's advocate so are Colleges are those also doomed?

Looking at this article makes me think of what if we made a course an open
platform. Maybe take moodle or some other system and merge it with a wiki and
create courses with it. Might be interesting.

~~~
indrax
Yes. A rough analogy:

    
    
      College   : Proper MOOC  : Closed MOOC ::
      Newspaper : Online Media : Paywalls

~~~
cwyers
I don't think that analogy holds up well. For newspapers -- an AP article on
the New York Times website has the same value as an AP article on any other
website. More broadly speaking -- the content is what's valuable here, and if
you offer the same content, you offer the same value to readers.

As the author himself notes:

"What colleges do not do, at least on campus, is to make money off course
content. As it is, you can easily order all the textbooks you could possibly
read on Amazon. You can join discussion groups about them. You sneak into
lectures, or find tons of them online. There is simply little value in the
course content."

And yet, the vast majority of people are paying for this content, rather than
applying the author's cost-saving measures. Why? Because there IS little value
in the course content. But that's NOT what colleges are selling. They're
selling credentials. In this case, getting the content from Harvard IS
different from getting it off a Github repository. Why? Because there's a
mechanism at Harvard that signals to other people what kind of content you
have learned from them. The reason that the analogy to newspapers isn't a
perfect one is because accreditation solves real problems for consumers of
college -- it lets them demonstrate that their credential has value.

Paywalls are "bad" because they restrict sharing of content. For news
articles, that's bad. People want to be able to share articles they find
interesting -- on Facebook, on Twitter, on Hacker News and Reddit and via
e-mail and so on and so forth. Paywalls reduce the number of people I can
discuss content with, and thus reduce the value of an article to me. With
credentials, you don't have that effect -- a credential is MORE valuable to me
the harder it is to obtain, because the credential then gives off a stronger
signal that I have demonstrated my worth.

Now, MOOCs target a wider audience than the people looking for credentials.
But their revenue streams almost all come from credentialing. And so I don't
think that closing a MOOC has the same effect as putting newspaper content
behind a paywall.

~~~
finid
I think it's wrong to posit that colleges are selling credentials. When you
enroll at any college, what you're actually paying for is the content of the
courses that you'll take for the duration of your enrollment. In other words,
you're paying for the quality of the education that you'll receive.

So no, real colleges are not selling credentials. Sure, you can buy a degree
online, if you know where to look, but that only gets you a useless
certificate.

~~~
vertex-four
> In other words, you're paying for the quality of the education that you'll
> receive.

Sort of, ish. There'd be a lot fewer people going to uni for the abstract
concept of "education", especially at what it costs in the US - the reason
that many people go to uni is that you can prove that you've been educated
under such-and-such a standard to future employers. That's credentials, and
that's what people are looking for from a college.

------
noahlt
Other closed platorms, probably doomed: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Snapchat, Google Maps, YouTube, Uber, iPhone.

------
brudgers
A MOOC is analogous to a textbook.It's content, not a meet up. It can be
consumed asynchronously.

------
droithomme
Like Coursera, Hacker News requires registration before one can participate.

Help, help, I'm being oppressed?

Funny, I don't feel oppressed.

------
dogma1138
Good to know, however atm they do offer free access to education for many
people who cannot get it or afford it through normal means.

And even the "premium" ones which usually offer full or partial degree
accreditation cost significantly less than traditional eduction.

And while many of them might be too "closed" for the usual suspects and
champions of freedom it's more to do with the fact that they do offer some
certification and credit and so have to be monitored.

I understand why Coursera does for example require sign up and participation
in a specified time frame this is so people can go trough the course as a
group, study together and learn from each-other just as much as they do from
the course.

The courses are also overseen by lecturers which offer help and guidance.

And since you do get a certificate(which value is yet to be determined) they
do need to have a strict and repeatable curriculum.

I have a feeling that the writer of this article as many others confuses a
MOOC with a library. A MOOC is not an arbitrary source of information or a
"lecture on demand" service, it's an education platform.

This is why the lecture library which Standford uploaded to youtube since like
what 2009 is not a MOOC, in fact i would go as far as saying that most
"examples" the author provided in his article (although nameless) are not
MOOC's..

A "MOOC" is still a course whether it's online or not and to be so it has to
provide a structured environment for it's curriculum. It's should be seen as
an evolution of the long distance courses many people have taken for over a
century not some podcast you throw on your smart phone or tablet while you
take the train to work.

People who treat MOOC's as educational materials and take them seriously
benefit from them, people who take them as some instant "smart pill" content
that they absorb on the tube can just as well read the free daily papers...

So yeah while bloated smarty pants like the author might bicker and moan about
just how bad and doomed MOOC's are I'm sure the tens of thousands of people
from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who are lucky enough to have internet
access do find them quite useful.

Heck I've seen class A universities steal i mean "borrow" material from
Coursera, edX and from Standford (and others) video lectures plenty of times.
Especially in new subjects ranging from video game design to information
security.

So i guess the material is good enough, and when the educational framework is
actually structured people actually benefit from the materials and no only
parrot them to feel smarter.

------
jetm9
one more point they're publicly funded. that should be at least motivator to
open up

------
wbillingsley
This is a problem that I'm working on, so it's nice to see others discussing
it too. Most of the MOOC providers are "open" to learners but relatively
"closed" for contribution -- edX for instance is exclusive about which
institutions can join. (And takes a hefty fee from every institution that does
join.)

All of which may be perfectly nice if you're an interested-but-casual learner
wanting to watch some courses that have had $100,000s spent on the video
production. Or if you're a high profile university wanting to advertise your
wares. But not so much use if you're a humble engineer-turned-CS-lecturer
wanting to collaborate with your colleagues to make things better for your
students (or, therefore, if you're one of their students!)

At UQ, my institution was a member, but with a curious process about how to
get a course approved (and unlikely to approve a junior contract academic like
I was). Moving onto faculty at the University of New England (Australia), UNE
isn't a member so I wouldn't be eligible.

So, I'm busily working sharable course models, and making things open-to-
contribution.

At UQ I co-designed a rather unusual studio course (with 200 students
programming together on the same codebase). Initially I was looking into
offering this as a guerrilla MOOC (without official backing) and opening the
content up for reuse. I gave a talk at ICSE in July 2014, where I also tried
to "get a gang together" to make it a community effort bigger than just me,
and the response was interesting -- some other junior academics wondering
about putting some of their students on our project.

And as I'm moving to UNE to help redesign their CS degree, I'm already going
to be an early example of a "fork". Especially as where we had 200+ in-class
students at UQ, many of the students at UNE will be remote, so I'd need to
change a few things.

Most of the material I've put up online is about the studio course, but the
sharable course model is also in progress

Recent talk I gave to OSDC:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SULsMJCNAYM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SULsMJCNAYM)

Website about the studio course concept:
[http://www.supercollaborative.org](http://www.supercollaborative.org) (due
for an update -- 2014 course numbers jumped from 140 to 200 and had a
different project)

Of course, Armidale NSW isn't exactly Silicon Valley, so I don't have VC
rocket fuel or marketing/publicity/etc. So expect a little duct-tape-and-
string early on. And I did way too much theatre as a PhD student in Cambridge,
so apologies for the vanity hey-I-get-to-do-video-teaching-now aspect of it.

