Credits & MOOCs

People want to learn for many purposes. They may want to learn something they  are really interested in, but they didn't study in school or as their courses for for a degree traditional education. They may want to learn something because they need them in their work or daily life, in this case, the knowledge or skills they want to learn is a kind of extension or complement of knowledge. Certainly, a lot of people learn something for a degree and a future career. I think these should be the people's main purpose of learning.

From these angle, we maybe can divided the students on MOOCs into three big types. The first type learn something from their interest, some learn for the needs of daily life or job, and some of them learn for achieving a degree. Among them, the first kind of people may less care about credits, the third kind of people care credits most, and the second kind of people are in the middle. Credits can be an evidence that you have learned something, and you have reached the study requirement of one course.It is a rigid way to prove what you have learned. However, obviously, it is also the most effective and easiest way to assess students. MOOC is a great way to learn, but not all of students who learn on MOOCs can get credits. There are just a few courses on MOOC which can give students credits if they pass the exams and complete the study. Meanwhile, there are just a few college or universities accept the credits from MOOC. It seems unfair to some people, because people who perform poorly and get a C in schools will get credits, but who learn well on MOOC get no credit (Into the Future With MOOC's).  It is undeniable that the value of credits has shrunk to some extent, along with the increasing enrollment of universities and colleges. Therefore, who complete a course and pass exams on MOOC seems should be given credits, and these credits should be accepted by universities and colleges (Into the Future With MOOC's). 

Colorado State University-Global Campus is the first school in United States to grant credit to students who passed a MOOC, but the result is no takers (A University's Offer of Credit for a MOOC Gets No Takers).I think that does not mean MOOC met a big fail. It is normal to some extent, because people are not inclined to spend money or efforts on a new thing which is not widely acknowledged and accepted, especially when the thing is serious for them, like credits. If just a few courses and a few universities accept the credits from MOOCs, it is hard to persuade students to take, even it is cheap, because it has no guarantee for its universal acceptance. Therefore, I believe MOOC still need a relatively long time to build a stable， feasible and acceptable credits awarding system. Some people mentioned that MOOCs can provide prior learning credits (Making It Count), I think it is a good idea. Through this way, students can get their degree more cheaply and quickly, but how to evaluate their knowledge have learned is problematic.

As to me, I think the widely accepted of credits from MOOC is a main way to attract students to get credits from MOOC, but new questions arising. If the credits can be widely approved and accepted on MOOCs, is there any limitations there? In other word, will all of the courses on MOOCs  be approved to give credits, if not, what kind of courses can be approved, what is the standards or measures? If most of the courses can be approved, and then MOOCs may attract more students and famous professors. Consequently, education seems will be more and more in the hands of famous universities，and then the uneven distribution of educational resources may causes new problems. Of course, MOOCs' runner may have abilities to solve these problems, but I do think they are worthy of consideration.

Economics of MOOCs

MOOC have launched for less than ten years, it is still in a state of experimentation as  CEO of Udacity, Sebastian Thrun said. So far, there are a lot of discussions about MOOC, including its content, its role in higher education, its fresh modes of learning, and the like. An unavoidable problem about MOOC is that in what ways MOOC can run for a long time just with free courses, or in what ways MOOC can make money. 

The key factor which is an important condition for MOOC's long-term running is its attraction to students. No matter the courses on MOOCs are all for free or people who run MOOC make money through different ways on MOOCs, students are the key factor. There may be one attraction here like David Holmes concluded the large environment of higher education today provides good soil for MOOC, which means the rising college costs and the shrinking values of Bachelor's Degree (How will the MOOC make money). Meanwhile, some elite universities and professors have joined in or plan to join in MOOC is also a big attraction. Obviously, these universities and professors not only can show their good will, and also win their prestige around the world through spreading their top education. But the problem now is the economic or financial problem. As we know, most of the course on MOOC is for free, which is its important advantage for attracting students. However, running a MOOC would cost a lot of money, Professors also need to preparing for their course through hard working. Therefore, how can we imagine that MOOCs can run for many years totally for free. Some people hold pessimistic attitude toward the future of MOOC,  and indicate that "it has a fatal economic flaw which makes it all but certain to fail" (Bitter Reality of MOOConomics). I think this is a possible result of MOOC if it does't introduce new modes of operation, or successful ways of making money.  

I am so glad to see some good advice have been provided to MOOC to improve their operation and earn money. For example, courses on MOOC are still free, but if people want to get certificates then they need to pay; MOOC provides colleges and universities sponsored classes; or offer consumers additional paid resources, like online library  (Infographic: How will the MOOCs make money?). Some fresher and creative suggestion are also raised: like purchsed Turing on MOOCs, collaborative group learning, problem sponsored learning, and syndication (Money Models for MOOCs). In these ways, I believe MOOC can strive for his own way. But to introduce these new things to MOOC and achieve its stable development is possible, but not easy. Firstly, in most of these areas, MOOC will meet its competitors. For example online purchased tutoring, how  we can be persuaded to hire a online tutor, instead of  one which we can talk face to face in daily life. Secondly, how people can accept the certificates get from a MOOC has the same value with that get from a university. Thirdly, MOOC also face a problem that how to improve the completion rate on MOOCs if they want to attract more universities or colleges to buy their sponsored courses.

Of course, there will be more problems along with more opportunities MOOC facing. No body knows the exact future of MOOC. Although, many top universities and some companies want to have places in this new thing, or this advanced way of education, how to make it longer and stronger need cool heads and creative thoughts. 

MOOC Can Be a Good Assistant for Higher Education

MOOCs may be disruptive to higher education as we know it. Is it a disruption? Why or why not? As to this question, my answer is no. From my point of view, MOOC can be a useful way of learning which can exist as an assistant of higher education, a way of long life learning. But it can't replace the traditional higher education, and it is also not disruptive to higher education.
Firstly, MOOCs provide  a lot of people around the world the chance to get excellent education, People who can't afford the high tuition fees , no time to participate in a full-time college study, interested in some courses and want to expand their knowledge along whole life, want to take courses instructed by some particular teachers who people can't learn from  face to face, or people who want to learn with  managing  time freely. This advantages are really salient and beneficial. How could we say they are disruptions to higher education? As my own experience, I like Chinese History, and I really admire a history teacher who teach in Taiwan. I have had no access to his class, until now I sign up his course on MOOC. After all, MOOC has a lot of advantages which people can get knowledge from it. 
Secondly, MOOC has its own limitations which decide that MOOC have no ability to disrupt higher education, not to mention that replace traditional education in my view. As Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk mentioned MOOCs finally pop the tuition bubble.(For Whom Is College Being Reinvented?) The free courses on MOOC can be a big attraction for many people. However, people who have access to a MOOC and can use it, even with many tools like Blogger, Twitter and so on, most of them are not the real poor people who can't afford college education. Especially in developing country， the people who can't afford the tuition fee also have no money to buy a computer, and don't know how to use it for study. As people said that students from the bottom tier usually need face to face instruction (Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk).From another perspective, when you put a lot of money in your study, it may be an chip which encourage you to study hard, instead of wasting money. I agree with the view that "Credits is the coin of the academic realm" ( Marc Bousquet, 2012, Good MOOC’s, Bad MOOC’s). It highlights the certificate or diploma of education. Can certificate or diploma from MOOC can be weigh equally as that from a college or university? If yes, then it maybe possible that MOOC can replace the traditional way of education. But my answer is no. The values of the certificate from MOOC and a real college can be different. In a university, we have the experience of face-to-face communication with our teachers and classmates, we have the experience of coping with pressure caused by our huge amounts of assignments, we have to opportunities to debate with each other in class as soon as some ideas come up, we are exposed to a community filled with competition and cooperation, and so on. After all, the university experience can't be replace by MOOC. Moreover, the value of the certificate, we call gold content in China, is also related to the environment you study in and the hard work you have paid. Study in a university is more intensive, relatively laborious and systematic than MOOC. Universities which provide the face-to-fave communications potentially create a personal relationship network for students, which is not only beneficial to the future career, but also a life long treasure.At last, some courses in arts area more suit for real class education. Therefore, I don't agree with the opinion that MOOC may replace many colleges except for the top 50 (Scott Carlson & Goldie Blumenstyk, 2012, For Whom Is College Being Reinvented?).  
All in all, I think, MOOC is a good helper of higher education, and won't disrupt higher education and can't replace traditional education.  

The Differences Between xMOOC and cMOOC

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are more and more popular in these days and it is seen as a revolution of education.Generally, MOOCs can be divided into two big categories, the first one is xMOOC, such as Edx and Coursera; the second one is cMOOC, such as Udacity. Both of them all provide a platform for people around the world who have the access to a MOOC to study online. There are different kinds of courses on MOOCs, and people can sign up for free and partly paid (Siemens,2012,MOOCs are really a platform).  Both of them give people a chance to study who may have no time or money to study in a university, or who have no access to great and top education around the world. Through MOOC, people can get a lot of valuable information and great thoughts from excellent teachers or professors.No matter where are they, if they have access to a MOOC, they will have equal rights to get higher and advanced education. Meanwhile, they can manage their time more freely than study in a university. Most of the time, they just need to complete their assignments or study before the end of a week. Because the materials, like videos and lectures are available all the time. Both of them can provide you a certificate or approval when you complete your course on MOOCs, which will help you, to some extent in finding a job.As to how great the extent will be is a good question which discussed a lot. I believe the extent won't be fixed, and it will change in the future. 
Now, let's talk about the differences between cMOOC and xMOOC. cMOOC emphasizes the concept of connectivist, or connectivist way of learning (Downes,2011,'Connectivism' and Connective Knowledge). That is to say, " that knowledge is distributed and learning is the process of navigating, growing, and pruning connections"(What is the theory that underpins our moocs?). Teachers on cMOOC will post some short videos, less than 10 minutes, and also small questions to help students. The interactions on cMOOC are distributed, multi-spaced, and it seems no a fixed center for the study network, which is unlike the course on xMOOC (What is the theory that underpins our moocs?). Teachers and students on cMOOC can be the information providers and generators, people talk with each other and sharing information and opinions. The cMOOC help them to build a social network which facilitate their study, discussion, and knowledge sharing. There are a lot of developed technical tools, like Bookmark, Facebook, Twitter, Blog and so on, to help they study on cMOOC. What is more, this tools also help to build their social network which will still exist even when the courses over. It make the network more meaningful, because people still can talk about what they all interested after the course and in their whole life. Instructors on cMOOC  unnecessarily are professors, PHDs, instead they can be just a graduates. The roles they play are a guidance to good and broad information for students more than the traditional sense of teacher who instill knowledge to students.Therefore, the key factor in cMOOC learning is that let students themselves explore, deepen, and extend the ideas (What is the theory that underpins our moocs?).Meanwhile, the way of learning on cMOOC can keep pace with the time, as we know knowledge is not fixed, and people interact frequently on cMOOC, which will be helpful to update information. Futhermore, different opinions and information can innovate students.At last, as 
Peter Norvig has said in his lecture what makes him so excited is the data they have gathered in this way of learning (Peter Norvig: The 100,000-student classroom). His words impressed me so much, it is really a big treasure which collect so much ideas and information around the world.

The xMOOC, like Edx and Coursera, they " adopt a traditional view of knowledge and learning. Instead of distributed knowledge networks, their MOOCs are based on a hub and spoke model" (What is the theory that underpins our moocs?). Courses on xMOOC seem to be more traditional, because the way of teaching and learning are mostly based on lectures and exams.They use technical grading and peer grading to deal with so many students'assignments, which is questioned for its quality, the graders'standards, but this peer grading also contributes to timely feedback, and opinion sharing. The teachers on xMOOC are mainly famous universities' famous professors, they can provide students high standard of education. The courses therefore  can be defined with elite, smart and rigorous.( While, cMOOC may be more fun.) As to its more traditional way of learning, there are some criticisms about it. Some people think the way of learning on cMOOC depends on knowledge replication and duplication, and it is not good for innovation. Sean Michael Morris think Cousera is just like a old long distance education (Broadcast Education: a Response to Coursera). As to these criticisms, I think Daphne Koller has given us some good responses in her lecture(http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education.html).I also shocked and impressed by her words that the amount of students which one famous professor taught in a MOOC course, will use him 250 years to reach this amount in his university. It reflect the greatness of MOOC. 

From my own opinion, I do think xMOOC and cMOOC respectively have their own advantages and audiences. They can meet the needs of different people. Actually, some people like the way of learning on xMOOC more than cMOOC, vice versa. After all, both of them are on the way of evolving. 

This video may be helpful for our understanding about MOOC.