Open and online learning – Making the most of MOOCs and other models (pt2)

The second session at the UUK event focused on key issues followed by a session on integration, quality and credit.

Emma Leach (Marketing, Nottingham University

This talk was from a marketing perspective, and raised a number of points:

All letters in MOOC are negotiable
Can university IT systems move quickly enough
What if you don’t have star faculty or technologies as clever as Google?
Alignment with strategy eg education without borders
How do we differentiate if late to market?
What strap lines and propositions are universities promoting with their MOOCs?
Ivy League selling education for all- strong focus on quality, so difficult for marketers to compete on brand

 

Challenges for marketing are:

  • Where do MOOCs fit into institutional strategy?
  • How to use MOOC to attract actual students?
  • What are the reputational benefits?
  • How could they be use for selecting students?
  • What about reputational risks – students have high expectations?
  • Brand positioning vs brand erosion?
  • Employability- what about when employers choose someone who has done a specific MOOC.?
  • Which subjects are we going to do and why, eg which have greatest market value?

 

Sian Bayne Edinburgh University

Sian was the module leader of the first MOOC that I took, so really interesting to hear her views as she spoke about her experiences of  “e-learning and Digital Cultures” (edcmooc) .

All the data regarding Edinburgh’s experiences are published here.

She discussed the pedagogy of edcmooc, showing the difference between xmooc and cmooc and showing that edcmooc tried c in x platform

In terns of course design, edcmooc was a curated MOOC space, with openly available videos and readings. An outcome was high level engagement with social media
There was sssue of deluge of activity – some liked it, others didn’t, and also an issue of teacher presence

Rob Cohen and Reed Talada (U2)

This was an extended advertisement for their company’s services. I took notes, but they are not repeatable.

Simon Nelson (CEO, FutureLearn)

Now this was a lot more interesting – this was the CEO of the UK MOOC platform, who have signed up a number of Russell Group universities and the Open University.

Not just about MOOCs but what happens when Internet collides with world of HE. Rumours of the death of HE are exaggerated in the short term. The internet is usually good for most people eg music books tv, but not necessarily good for established players and can lead to high level casualties eg HMV, Blockbusters and  Borders. (two of these companies were used as case studies in my recent course on “Surviving Disruptive Technologies”).
New patterns. platforms and people are suddenly getting lots of attention and decades of experience can seem irrelevant.

The choices are: “We need to do something” or,  “We don’t need to worry”.

The debate really comes down to understanding the pace of change and recognising that change is not a guarantee of success or survival.

The advice is to “Start early, fail fast.”

The future is still going to be highly competitive, but organisations still need to make the change and learn as an organisation and become better placed

Don’t worry about latest shiny stuff
We need to develop a holistic view of being digital – this means access and discovery on demand, multi device and platform, enhanced meta information, and then add the clever shiny stuff. Also need to include interactivity and participation, from not the only content creator so that you could showcase other content.

To be successful. do the basics brilliantly  – which are access, discovery and social. This means having to find new talent who understand digital while continuing to invest in all your people

He then went on to discuss the development of FutureLearn, without giving too much away about how the system might look:

  • A place where partners will experiment
  • Combine expertise of OU with BBC story telling
  • Small agile multi disciplinary team
  • Not just MOOCs but all online learning
  • With world class talent and content
  • Makes FutureLearn something different
  • Building for the digital moment, ie building learning around people’s lives
  • Ensuring portfolio of learning sits alongside all other digital life eg music books
  • Needs to be discoverable
  • Taking the learner on a journey and exciting them with high quality content
  • Bring the social web to learning. Social highly collaborative experience
  • User experience to be welcoming and exciting. Not just for educational elite
  • Integrate what we’ve learnt from TV and other media
  • Think there is much to it that MOOCs

In questions, Simon Nelson showed how they had chose the universities they wanted to work with in Future Learn. They looked at the league tables, and chose the ones at the top.

FutureLearn is going to be interesting to watch though – it has the backing of the Open University, I imagine some VC money, a lot of Russell Group universities and a charismatic CEO who has a track record of delivering a digital strategy.

Stephen Jackson (QAA)

A quick run through possible quality implications of MOOCs

QAA safeguards and assures standards. MOOCs which don’t attract credit are a separate matter. Once they attract credit they need QAA input to assure quality of provision and how students engage with them. Are students getting a proper deal from education and what happens when MOOCs are monetized

QA principles apply to all learning opportunities and modes of delivery, and the relevant chapters of the code are B1, B3 and B6, relating to input standards, engagement and output.

The QA issue to deal with will be the shelf life of MOOCs and the currency and accuracy of information, questioning how often are they updated?