MOOC – the online education platform

Further training courses, free of charge and open to all in­ter­ested parties – a dream of the internet. With MOOC (massive open online courses) the ideal of access to education for all becomes more and more of a reality. You can now take courses online on all sorts of topics, provided you have internet access and you can motivate yourself! However, the online courses are not only dry ex­plan­at­ory videos, or lengthy technical texts. Many MOOCs make use of the internet and offer learners in­ter­est­ing options for studying, including exchanges with other par­ti­cipants. What are the ad­vant­ages and dis­ad­vant­ages of massive open online courses?

The internet has always been a place for ex­chan­ging knowledge. Today more than ever, people are asking the internet for in­form­a­tion. “Googling” has been an es­tab­lished term for a while, and Wikipedia is the online authority of choice for many users. The knowledge of the world is available to everyone online. But most of the time you are left to your own devices, and with the wide range of material out there, it’s often over­whelm­ing to pick out the relevant in­form­a­tion – unlike in a course.

Schools and uni­ver­sit­ies are quite different – you work with class­mates, or at least have people working on the same thing, and you’ll most likely have a course leader to structure and explain the contents to you. A MOOC tries to combine the ad­vant­ages of both worlds – in­ter­activ­ity paired with the open access of the internet.

The acronym MOOC stands for “massive open online course.” The four parts of the term provide a good approach to the essence of online seminars:

• Massive: Thanks to the ever increased di­git­isa­tion of resources, massive open online courses don’t have to deal with the re­stric­tions of physical edu­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions. That means that there is no limited number of par­ti­cipants. As a result, MOOCs can host between 100 and several thousands of students, and can truly be described as “massive.”
   
• Open: There are admission re­stric­tions for uni­ver­sit­ies in many faculties, depending on grades or ex­per­i­ence, and other factors may con­trib­ute to people choosing not to go to uni­ver­sity – such as money. Massive open online courses are free, and are open to anyone, re­gard­less of income, culture, or edu­ca­tion­al back­ground. Anyone with internet access can take part in the courses.
   
• Online: The seminars function com­pletely via the internet. MOOCs therefore have a lot in common with distance learning uni­ver­sit­ies. Learning materials are available re­gard­less of location. This is combined with the numerous pos­sib­il­it­ies of e-learning. The internet-based pub­lic­a­tion of the materials gives teachers the op­por­tun­ity to use digital resources.
   
• Course: MOOCs are often not just present­a­tions. Most of the courses are based more on the concept of a course or seminar. Instead of simply absorbing in­form­a­tion, students are involved in the whole process. Many massive open online courses include homework, and some even a final exam.

MOOCs have been around since 2008, when two pioneers in e-learning, George Siemens and Stephen Downes, launched the first massive open online course on the internet. Its topic was still directly related to the principle behind learning via the internet: “Con­nect­iv­ism and Con­nect­ive Knowledge.” From there, more and more sci­ent­ists have followed the example, and made teaching materials and lectures publicly ac­cess­ible. MIT and Stanford Uni­ver­sity, in par­tic­u­lar, re­cog­nized the potential of MOOCs early on and offered courses online.

Private companies have also re­cog­nised the op­por­tun­it­ies. For example, Udacity and Coursera offer platforms for attending courses at uni­ver­sity level. The companies them­selves do not create their own massive open online courses, but work together with lecturers and uni­ver­sit­ies. These platforms are usually offered free of charge. However, par­ti­cipants can take an exam at the end of a course and receive a cer­ti­fic­ate if they pass – this usually incurs a fee.

The range of MOOCs is highly diverse. While the first courses on the platform were mainly related to computer science, seminars in pretty much all subject areas are now offered. The courses aim to com­mu­nic­ate their contents com­pre­hens­ively and expertly. Some (e.g. a large part of what Udacity offers) are designed to prepare students for their careers and are more prac­tic­ally oriented.

Not every massive open online course is built up in the same way. Two kinds in par­tic­u­lar have emerged in recent years, namely cMOOCs and xMOOCs. In addition, there are so-called bMOOCs, which are a com­bin­a­tion of online and offline courses. What is the dif­fer­ence between these types of MOOC?

An xMOOC is very similar to the principle of a classic lecture. Lecturers and pro­fess­ors explain the topic in video con­tri­bu­tions and provide ad­di­tion­al teaching material. The teacher or professor is at the centre of the course. On most platforms, courses are based on this principle, with some variation on this theme. Since xMOOCs require little activity from learners, it is not sur­pris­ing that most students register for these courses. The “x” stands for “extension” and is derived from the des­ig­na­tion of online courses offered at Harvard Uni­ver­sity.

In the cMOOCs, the “c” stands for “con­nect­iv­ism” – con­nect­iv­ism is un­der­stood as a learning theory that presumes that human beings are con­nect­ive, and con­nect­iv­ism un­der­stands learning to be the creation of con­nec­tions. The focus here is on students becoming active them­selves. The lecturers provide materials (including video clips they’ve made), and motivate students to make their own con­tri­bu­tions. These can take the form of blog posts, videos, or even podcasts. However, this is not ob­lig­at­ory. This MOOC form was ori­gin­ally thought up by George Siemens and Stephen Downes.

The “blended” MOOCs combine on-site in­struc­tion with an online com­ple­ment­ary course or material. The latter is freely available to the general public (like other MOOCs). Students will discuss and further explore the findings from the MOOC in their seminar. The MOOC module does not have to have been created by your own faculty. It is also con­ceiv­able that lecturers will select foreign MOOCs for their students, and then look at them in the seminar.

The length of MOOCs is usually based on seminars such as those found at uni­ver­sit­ies and further edu­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions such as adult education centres. Across several months, the students devote them­selves to the course topic. Although the dis­sem­in­a­tion of teaching materials via the internet would in principle make it possible to par­ti­cip­ate in courses at different times and on an entirely in­di­vidu­al basis, most massive open online courses begin at a fixed time and also end with a joint final ex­am­in­a­tion. Sometimes each par­ti­cipant can decide for them­selves at what pace the in­di­vidu­al lessons are to be completed, in other cases they work together at weekly intervals from lesson to lesson.

MOOCs are not just about watching a recorded lecture. They accompany students over a long time and should therefore not be confused with webinars. Although these are also seminars that take place via the internet, these are usually short events, and the course is usually completed after one hour.

There are no set rules for how to structure MOOCs. Depending on the type of MOOC and the topic covered, the materials used in the course differ. The context of the course and the learning objective also play an important role in how a massive open online course is struc­tured. Video re­cord­ings of the lectures and ac­com­pa­ny­ing text material are almost always included.

• Videos: The most common element that can be found in all forms of MOOCs are video clips. Since lectures can’t be listened to live, teachers create videos in which they talk about the material. It turns out that several shorter clips are more popular with learners than long lectures.
   
• Texts: As with offline studies, course par­ti­cipants are provided with technical texts and other teaching materials. These can accompany the content of the videos, or enable in­de­pend­ent studying.
   
• Tests: In many MOOCs, tests form part of the syllabus. These may crop up only once or twice, or occur on a weekly basis. The aim of the in­ter­me­di­ate ex­am­in­a­tions is not to dis­trib­ute grades and put pressure on the par­ti­cipants, but to give everyone the op­por­tun­ity to check their in­di­vidu­al learning progress.
   
• Tasks: Many MOOCs also require homework. In these massive open online courses, par­ti­cipants deal more ex­tens­ively with the topic. However, since it is not possible for any lecturer to check thousands of papers, peer as­sess­ment is a common method used in MOOCs.
   
• Com­mu­nic­a­tion: Es­pe­cially with cMOOCs, com­mu­nic­a­tion between the par­ti­cipants is very important. In many cases, the course provider already provides a suitable forum, but it is not uncommon for par­ti­cipants to network via social media and form in­de­pend­ent learning groups. Google hangouts or similar tech­niques are often used to com­mu­nic­ate within the groups. Some even organise meetings offline.
   
• Par­ti­cip­a­tion: Par­ti­cip­a­tion also plays an important role, es­pe­cially with cMOOCs. Since these offers depend strongly on the input of the course par­ti­cipants, it is important to motivate students to create their own content. No specific format has to be adhered to. For example, par­ti­cipants often create their own blogs on the topic of the course and discuss the content with other students.

MOOCs sound great on paper, and indeed many people all over the world are en­thu­si­ast­ic about the concept, both on the part of learners and teachers. However, along with the benefits, there are also some dis­ad­vant­ages to taking a massive open online course.

The advantage for learners is obvious: self-de­term­ined, without re­stric­tions, without costs, everyone can learn what they want. People who have so far been cut off from higher education also have the op­por­tun­ity to continue their education at the highest level. Few people have the op­por­tun­ity to attend a seminar with a professor at Stanford Uni­ver­sity. MOOCs make this more ac­cess­ible. But there are also dis­ad­vant­ages to the concept, in that the learning process is different from that at school or uni­ver­sity.

You need a lot more self-dis­cip­line to keep up the course and you have to expect less su­per­vi­sion during your studies. MOOCs are usually so well attended that lecturers cannot take time for every single student. In addition, in most cases the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the course is only rewarded with the knowledge gained. Although the com­mer­cial platforms in par­tic­u­lar also offer cer­ti­fic­a­tions, their impact on the labour market is still re­l­at­ively small. Some are already working on re­cog­niz­ing credits for MOOCs at uni­ver­sit­ies, but this project is still in its infancy.

MOOCs also offer some ad­vant­ages for teachers. For example, you can make your teaching content available to many more people than would be possible in classroom seminars. This is not only ideal from an ideal­ist­ic point of view, but also helps to improve your own academic repu­ta­tion – and this applies both to the lecturers involved and the uni­ver­sity for which they work. So far, however, this has only been done on a voluntary basis. One dis­ad­vant­age is that seeing as most massive open online courses are offered via non-uni­ver­sity platforms, data pro­tec­tion is often not secure. Coursera in par­tic­u­lar was suspected in the past of passing on par­ti­cipants’ data to third parties.

Through the collected data, however, teachers can see at which point they lose students. This can ul­ti­mately ensure that the teaching is improved – and as long as the data is kept secure, it is a great format for online teaching. On this note, however, the high number of dropouts should also be mentioned. Only very few par­ti­cipants who start a MOOC follow it to the end. However, this does not ne­ces­sar­ily mean that a massive open online course is not worth­while. The fact that the course is free means that many students will start it as a trial, and don’t intend to finish it in the first place. However, even if the courses are the­or­et­ic­ally ac­cess­ible to everyone, for many people a previous education is necessary in order to be able to suc­cess­fully follow the material.

Another dis­ad­vant­age is that for pub­lic­a­tion on the internet, different copyright reg­u­la­tions apply than in a closed uni­ver­sity en­vir­on­ment. Certain materials which might be allowed for teaching use in a uni­ver­sity en­vir­on­ment may not be available for MOOCs due to copyright re­stric­tions. This limits the possible materials for the courses.