The growth of MOOCs is clearly massive for the developing world where access to high quality educational resources is limited, but what does it mean for countries like the US? Can a person get the same quality of education from online courses as traditional courses? Can those courses be graded and accredited in a way which means something to employers? Or are we forever stuck in a model of higher education where graduating from a prestigious university is the only thing that matters, and you pay more for the prestige than the actual education itself?
You can probably get the same education if you put in sufficient effort, but going to top level universities is also about the contacts you forge with likeminded people, often in specific social strata, as well as being able to interact in person with top people in the field.
Of course you can get the contacts elsewhere if you make the effort, but the university system is extremely well placed to bring people together for extended periods of time and put them in situations that encourages bonding, and that provides a lot of value.
Frankly, not taking better advantage of that is what I miss the most about cutting my studies short (I left university to co-found my first company; I went back and completed a MSc via correspondence courses, and it served the purpose of documenting my skills, but it wasn't the same without that daily social interaction with people working on the same things).
MOOCs can probably lift the low end, and make the basic education a commodity, but universities will still serve a lot of other purposes. I could even see "universities" pop up for people to attend to take MOOCs from suppliers with top teachers for the main teaching and "just" offering support services and networking/bonding opportunities around that. E.g. universities have long used books from outside their own university, so it just makes sense for them to make use of other resources, including whole courses, when there are ones available elsewhere where they can't compete on the lectures themselves and focus on their strong points.
With a modicum of commitment, it is of course possible to learn the technical content of a course online or by correspondence. However, contacts are not the only (or even the main) benefit of attending a top university such as Harvard, Cambridge or MIT. Putting a group of similarly intelligent young people together in an environment that fosters learning and exchange is just as important -- students learn as much from each other as from their teachers. And the manner in which they learn is formed by the environment, which imposes certain expectations with respect to intellectual rigor and creativity.
This is how the top universities continue to stay on top despite there being only a small difference in the quality of the students studying there, and virtually no difference in course content, compared to those just beneath them in the various rankings.
I guess that since these MOOCs are essentially online study groups with very minimal direct interaction with professors/teaching assistants, it is very hard to verify that a student actually did all the work without help from others. Since educations are essentially tickets to getting job interviews, the incentives for cheating are high. I think that is indeed a problem which needs to be addressed. Maybe by introducing course centers where participants can take an online exam under controlled conditions, i.e., in the presence of observers?
Open University in the UK offers distance learning, but all exams are taken in person - the have long offered exam centres all over the world.
They do also offer e-mail and phone contact with advisors for many courses, and for most courses grades also partially depend on assessment of mandatory assignments 2-4 times during the course.
Of course this comes at a substantially higher cost than these MOOCs seems to do. Presumably there'll be space for some "in between" variations that offers monitoring of just the exams for example.
That seems to be direction that some organisations are taking MOOCs. I know here Rwanda, there's new pilot program called Kepler[1] which is going to use MOOCs as the primary teaching tool, but have students sit exams (under observation) for a "competency based" degree offered by a university in the US.
That sounds interesting. From the home page, it even seems that the program offers housing with other students, giving them a good study environment. The tuition seems to be around $1000-$1500 - I don't know what the average income is in Rwanda, but I assume that this is manageable for most people?
It's comparable to what local universities charge, and they have no problem attracting students - the quality of education might not be great but you need a degree for most government jobs, and other employers place a lot of weight on that piece of paper that says you're educated. The government also provides a lot of scholarships and loans.
Can a person get the same quality of education from online courses as traditional courses? Can those courses be graded and accredited in a way which means something to employers?
What about the overall success of http://www.open.ac.uk ? Apparently, distance learning is acknowleged by employers.
