As
I stated in an earlier posts for this class, I don’t think that MOOCs will
bring about the end of brick and mortar higher education institutions. However, I do think that they could provide
competition that could force the traditional higher education institutions to
alter their business models in order to remain competitive. Regardless of whether MOOCs ultimately materialize
as a stable educational opportunity, their presence in the educational industry,
just like the emergence of online institutions, could affect the traditional
institutions. As Salerno (2012) points
out, MOOCs have a fatal flaw at this point; in most MOOCs, students do not earn
any credentials for completed coursework, which is a factor in why many
students attend college. Unless this
flaw can be resolved in a way that does not place the financial burden on the
students, MOOCs will remain limited in their potential impact. To this point, it seems unlikely that MOOCs
offered through companies such as Courseara and Udacity, among other, will
forever be available to students at no cost.
As Dellarocas (2013) bluntly stated, “MOOCs lose money”. At some point in time, it seems logical to
assume that the financial investors for these projects will require a return on
their investments. At that point, the
future of MOOCs is unclear. No one knows exactly how MOOCs will become
monetized (Holmes, 2013). The ideas for
monetizing MOOCs are varied and plenty.
There are options to have MOOCs charge students for additional resources
such as library resources and tutoring.
In addition, charging students for a certificate of completion is a
viable option as well. Regardless of
exactly how the MOOC phenomenon evolves, it seems likely that they could lose
their greatest appeal; free cost to students.
Last year I created an online course
using Blackboard Learn as part of a course assignment. I wanted to see how easily I could export
that course into CourseSites, so I created an account today. The export process was simple, and it seems
to offer all of the functionality of Blackboard Learn. I think that this product would have great
potential in a MOOC environment, assuming you have no more than five classes
you need to teach (the maximum number of courses allowed).
Resources
Dellarocas, C.
(2013, August). Money models for moocs. Communications of the ACM, 56(8),
25-28.
Holmes, D.
(2013, August 22). How will the moocs make money?. Retrieved from http://pandodaily.com/2013/08/22/infographic-how-will-the-moocs-make-money/
Salerno, C.
(2012, August 9). Bitter reality of mooconomics. Retrieved from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/08/09/real-economics-massive-online-courses-essay
James,
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that MOOCs are free is what is drawing much of the attention. However, when these courses are no longer free do you think they will have as many participants enrolled?
Free and available to anyone are definitely positive aspects of MOOCs. As you stated, MOOCs will force higher education institutions to reconsider their current models; but I also believe it will force the administrators to revise their teaching model - one that engages and makes the learning student-centered and teachers as facilitators.
ReplyDeleteHi James,
ReplyDeleteThanks for a well-written and thoughtful post! I think you've made some very good points here, and I think you are right to think about MOOCs offered through for-profits separately from those offered directly through institutions. For-profits, after all, are for-profit. It seems that they will have to figure out some way to make money in order to stay afloat. It will be interesting to see how things turn out!
Hi James,
ReplyDeleteIn found an article that relayed the cost to initiate a MOOC with a provider and it is nowhere near cheap (one charges base of $250,000 per course, $50,000 each additional offering and a cut of the revenues)! The costs is so high that I really do not see how medium to small institutions will afford to partner. Perhaps there is a future, but I do believe it will look much differently related to the financial aspect for all involved.
Juanita,
DeleteThat is part of the reason why I have such a hard time jumping on the MOOC bandwagon. At the moment they are free to students, but that does not mean they are cheap. At some point in time that cost has to be transferred to the students.