Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs): Educational Innovation
or Threat to Higher Education
Dr. Brad Mehlenbacher
Past President, ACM SIGDOC
Department of Leadership, Policy
& Adult & Higher Education
NC State University
Raleigh, North Carolina
[email protected]
OSDOC+ISDOC 2012,
Workshop of the ACM SIGDOC
EuroDOC Chapter (Sponsored
by the ACM and IUL-ISCTE)
June 11, 2012
MOOCs: Outline
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
MOOCs: Acronyms everywhere
MOOCs defined
A brief history of MOOCs
MOOCs and the media
MOOCs and money
Challenges to Higher Education
Struggles in Contested digital
spaces
Students as consumers
Challenges facing Information
Systems and Communication
Designers
MOOCs and the future of
instruction
Higher Education and Global
Economic Collapse.*
Downloaded from:
*To download this presentation, see http://www.slideshare.net/bradmehlenbacher/
MOOCs: The Importance of Acronyms
l 
l 
l 
l 
M for Massive: Define
massive? How many students?
Duration? Retention?
O for Online: Can there be
offline versions? Study groups?
O for Open: Open enrollment?
Openly licensed content? Open
source platform? Open-ended
classes? Free in what way?*
Course: Or connection,
connectivism, community,
credit, certificate?
Adopted from:
Masters, K. (2011). A brief guide to understanding MOOCs. The Internet Journal of Medical Education, 1 (2). Available online:
http://www.ispub.com/journal/the-internet-journal-of-medical-education/volume-1-number-2/a-brief-guide-to-understandingmoocs.html
Watters, A. (2012). The language of MOOCs. Hackeducation.com, June 7. Available online:
http://www.hackeducation.com/2012/06/07/the-language-of-moocs/
*Wiley, D., & Green, C. (2012). Chapter 6: Why openness in education? In Diana G. Oblinger (ed.), Game Changers:
Education and Information Technologies (pp. 81-89). Louisville, CO: EDUCAUSE. Available online:
http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/chapter-6-why-openness-education
MOOCs: A Crib Sheet
l 
Features of a
MOOC: Wiki or
blog for course
materials, open
enrollment,
readings or
recordings,
networking
between students,
activities, sharing
knowledge,
student-driven
assignments,
participation, and
content
production.
Adopted from:
Shaffer, J. (2011). MOOC crib sheet. Workshop at ISTE 2011. Available online: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/
MOOCs: The Beginning
l 
l 
l 
MOOC coined in 2008 by
Dave Cormier (U of PEI) in
response to online course
designed by George Siemens
(Athabasca U) and Stephen
Downes (NRC Canada)
First MOOC: 25 tuition-paying
students at U of Manitoba and
2,300 general students who
took Connectivism and
Connective Knowledge
class for free
RSS feeds, Moodle
discussions, blogs, Second
Life, synchronous online
meetings.
Adopted from:
Connectivism 2008. (2008). Extended Education and Learning Technologies Centre, University of Manitoba.. Available online:
http://ltc.umanitoba.ca/wiki/Connectivism_2008#Week_9:_What_becomes_of_the_teacher.3F_New_roles_for_educators_.
28November_3-9.29
Massive open online course. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Available online:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course#History
MOOCs: The Media Attention
l 
l 
l 
l 
Adopted from:
Stanford U launches set of free
online courses
Sebastian Thrun’s Stanford U
AI MOOC attracts over 160K
users (25K complete the
course) from over 190 countries
Thrun founds Udacity, a forprofit start-up based on the
course
Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng
at Stanford spin off Coursera
(16M venture funding).
Coursera. (n.d.). MOOC start-up. Available online: https://www.coursera.org/
Lewin, T. (2012). Beyond the College Degree, Online Educational Badges. The New York Times, March 4. Available online:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/education/beyond-the-college-degree-online-educational-badges.html
Lewin, T. (2012). Instruction for Masses Knocks Down Campus Walls. The New York Times, March 4. Available online:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/education/moocs-large-courses-open-to-all-topple-campus-walls.html?pagewanted=all
Simon, S. (2012). Startup aims to rival Ivy League online: Elite Internet university to see top students from around the globe.
Edmonton Journal, April 6. Available online:
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Startup+aims+rival+League+online/6420373/story.html
Thrun, S., & Norvig, P. (n.d.). Introduction to Artificial Intelligence. Available online: https://www.ai-class.com/
Weissmann, J. (2012). Can This “Online Ivy” University Change the Face of Higher Education? The Atlantic, April 5. Available
online:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/can-this-online-ivy-university-change-the-face-of-higher-education/
255471/
MOOCs: The Money
l 
l 
l 
MIT OpenCourseWare
announced in 2002 with over 2K
courses online, funded by the
William and Flora Hewlett
Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, and MIT (edX has
$60M MIT and Harvard funding)
Salman Khan starts the Khan
Academy in 2009, funded by the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
and Google
Ben Nelson secures $25M in
venture capital from Benchmark
Capital in 2011 to start an online
university, Minerva Project.
Adopted from:
Khan Academy. (n.d.). The team. Available online: http://www.khanacademy.org/about/the-team
Kolowich, S. (2012). How will MOOCs make money? Inside Higher Ed, June 11. Available online:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/06/11/experts-speculate-possible-business-models-mooc-providers
MIT OpenCourseWare. (n.d.). Unlocking knowledge, empowering minds. Available online: http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
Weissmann, J. (2012). Can This “Online Ivy” University Change the Face of Higher Education? The Atlantic, April 5. Available
online:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/04/can-this-online-ivy-university-change-the-face-of-higher-education/
255471/
Ben Nelson: On Higher Education
l 
Is this a good industry within which to start a
new company?
l 
Here are the industry characteristics. Here is
a multi-billion dollar industry providing a service
that’s doing gross margins of about 80 percent
or so. There are a couple dozen competitors in
this industry, the most recent entrant of which
will turn a hundred years old next year.
The industry provides a service that has grown
in price three times the rate of inflation in 30
years. So the service has become substantially
more expensive. And for the privilege of buying
that service, this industry serves approximately
10 percent of market demand…
l 
Adopted from:
Nelson, B. (2011). Taking on the Ivy League. TEDx SF: Independently organized TED event, December 5. Available online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEv8g80lcjo
Ben Nelson: On Higher Education
l 
l 
Another 10 percent approximately is serviced by people
outside of that industry and substitute goods and about 80
percent just don’t get that service, they just can’t buy it,
even though they have the means and the ability to take
advantage of the service, they just can’t buy it.
Now the last characteristic of this industry is that the service
that it is delivered by service professionals who not only
have no training to deliver the service but, in the course of
their evaluation, their promotion, their compensation, etc.,
not only are not monitored in how they deliver the service,
they’re not trained in how to deliver the service, but there’s
absolutely little to no, and mostly no, penalty or reward for
providing this service well….
Adopted from:
Nelson, B. (2011). Taking on the Ivy League. TEDx SF: Independently organized TED event, December 5. Available online:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEv8g80lcjo
Sumagaysay, L. (2012). GMSV Q&A with Ben Nelson, CEO of planned ‘elite’ online university. MercuryNews.com, April 4.
Available online: http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_20324886/gmsv-q-ben-nelson-ceo-planned-elite-online?source=rss
Richard Lanham: 10 Assumptions that
Organize Higher Education
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
Assumption 1—The ideal education is face-to-face, oneon-one education
Assumption 2—Higher education, in its ideal form,
proceeds in a setting sequestered in both time and space
Assumption 3—The education that every university offers
should be generated in-house by resident faculty
employed full-time for this purpose
Assumption 4—The ideal pattern of employment for a
university faculty is one that combines a maximum of
narrowness and inflexibility in job description with a
maximum of job security: the tenure system
Assumption 5—The purpose of the university
administration is to protect the faculty from the outside
world
Adopted from:
Lanham, R. A. (2002). The audit of virtuality: Universities in the attention economy. In S. Brint (ed.), The Future of the City of
Intellect: The Changing American University (pp. 159-180). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Richard Lanham: 10 Assumptions that
Organize Higher Education
l 
Assumption 6—University faculties are animated by a
purity of motive different from, and superior to, the
world of ordinary human work
l 
Assumption 7—Universities are unique institutions. As
such, they cannot be meaningfully compared to any
others
l 
Assumption 8—Inefficiency is something to be proud of
Assumption 9—The new electronic field of
expression does not change what we are doing but only
how we are doing it
Assumption 10—The university lives in the same kind of
economy it has always lived in (pp. 160-176).
l 
l 
Adopted from:
Lanham, R. A. (2002). The audit of virtuality: Universities in the attention economy. In S. Brint (ed.), The Future of the City of
Intellect: The Changing American University (pp. 159-180). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Contested Digital Spaces
l 
“What unites and distinguishes these digital writing
environments from those in print is their materiality–their
existence through the hardware and software that shape
their design or what Lessig (2006) calls ‘architecture’” (p.
508)
l 
“While digital writing spaces are coded in diverse ways,
they all exist in and through digital technologies, and as
such they enable, constrain, challenge, reproduce, or
question established practices, social orders, and
hierarchies rooted in print materialities while also offering
alternative practices and social orders to those established
around print” (p. 508)
“Each new discursive space … is a unique constellation
of participants and digital software codes” (p. 403).
l 
Adopted from:
Starke-Meyerring, D. (2008). Genre, knowledge and digital code in web-based communities: An integrated theoretical
framework for shaping digital discursive spaces. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 4 (4), 398-417.
Starke-Meyerring, D. (2009). The contested materialities of writing in digital environments: Implications for writing
development. In R. Beard, M. Myhill, J. Riley, & M. Nystrand (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of writing development (pp.
506-526). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Struggles in contested spaces
Struggles over
l  Equal access
l  Intellectual property and sharing
l  Privacy and surveillance
Implications
l  Policy engagement and research attention: “what student
writers, citizens, and others will be able to access, build on,
what kind of knowledge they will be able to make (p. 520)
l  Reconsidering writing pedagogies, policies, and
infrastructures: “that allow students to critically analyze
and engage in the design, use, and regulation of the …
spaces they inhabit” (p. 522).
Adopted from:
Starke-Meyerring, D. (2008). Genre, knowledge and digital code in web-based communities: An integrated theoretical
framework for shaping digital discursive spaces. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 4 (4), 398-417.
Starke-Meyerring, D. (2009). The contested materialities of writing in digital environments: Implications for writing
development. In R. Beard, M. Myhill, J. Riley, & M. Nystrand (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of writing development (pp.
506-526). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Students as Consumers: Appeal
l 
21M teenagers between 12-17 use the Internet and 78
percent primarily at school (16M) (Hitlin & Rainie, 2005)
l 
These students want
l  To complete their education while working full-time
l  A curriculum and faculty that are relevant to the
workplace (vocationally oriented)
l  A time-efficient education
l  Their education to be cost-effective (and costs have
increased)
l  A high level of customer service (and class sizes are
growing)
l  Convenience (Biggs, p. 2; De Alva, pp. 55-56).
Adopted from:
Biggs, J. (2003). Teaching for Quality Learning at University: What the Student Does. Buckingham, England: Society for
Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.
De Alva, J. K. (1999/2000). Remaking the academy in the age of information. Issues in Science and Technology, 16 (2), 52-58.
Students as Consumers: Problem
l 
The learners-as-consumers model of educational
interaction problematic because
l  If universities are able to maintain their altruistic goal
of serving the public good, learners may not be
satisfied with the workplace preparation offered by
some institutions;
l  Although customers of financial institutions expect
high returns on their investments in limited amounts of
time, the business of financial institutions does not
allow this promise to be made; so too are learners
subject to the complexities of resources that are
brought together to provide them with rigorous and
useful courses and programs;
Adopted from:
Mehlenbacher, B. (2010). Instruction and Technology: Designs for Everyday Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Students as Consumers: Problem
l 
The learners-as-consumers model of educational
interaction problematic because
l  Universities serve many constituents, not simply
learners, and are therefore going to be continually
faced with decisions that require trade-offs between
satisfying one customer base versus another; and
l  Convenience, which presumes agreement and a
“good fit” and frictionless programs, is not the
responsibility of higher learning institutions (i.e., many
more applicants would like to attend MIT or Harvard
than are admitted, which is, again, similar to the
situation with financial institutions).
Adopted from:
Mehlenbacher, B. (2010). Instruction and Technology: Designs for Everyday Learning. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Information Systems and
Communication Design Professionals:
Our problems have Changed
l 
Our problem situations are
unstable, demand flexibility
and a creative ability to
organize across similar but
always different problems
and demand that we
understand, argue, and
evaluate our work both
conceptually and
pragmatically (Schön,
1983).
Adopted from:
Schön, D. A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. New York, NY: Basic.
Our Understanding of Knowledge has
Changed
l 
Our understanding of knowledge
has changed: knowledge is no
longer represented in the form of
lists, primary sources, controlled
areas of expertise, or fixed private
states of understanding; instead,
knowledge is contingent, framed
by higher-order and changing
structures, publicly distributed, and
drawn from multiple, emergent
sources (Resnick, Lesgold, & Hall,
2005).
Adopted from:
Resnick, L. B., Lesgold, A., and Hall, M. W. (2005). Technology and the new culture of learning: Tools for education
professionals. In P. Gårdenfors and P. Johansson (eds.), Cognition, Education, and Communication Technology (pp. 77–107).
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Our Organizations have Changed
l 
Work is characterized by
downsizing, automation,
flattening of work hierarchies,
increasing numbers of
relationships between
companies, continual
reorganization, the breaking
down of silos or stovepipes in
organizations, and the
increase in telecommunications
(Spinuzzi, 2007).
Adopted from:
Spinuzzi, C. (2007). Introduction to TCQ Special Issue: Technical communication in the age of distributed work. Technical
Communication Quarterly, 16 (3), 265-277.
Our Definitions of Expertise have
Changed
l 
l 
l 
Expertise is contextualized and
social (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Expertise comes in many
different forms, e.g., in the
ability to think critically or
creatively or practically or wisely
(Sternberg, 2003).
We can be both experts and
novices simultaneously (Brown
& Duguid, 2000).
Adopted from:
Brown, J. S., and Duguid, P. (2000). The Social Life of Information. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York, NY: Cambridge University
Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (2003). What is an “Expert Student?” Educational Researcher, 32 (8), 5-9.
Understanding Ourselves as Information
Systems / Communication Designers
§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 
Understanding communication design depends on
your relationship to it. Understanding differs
depending on whether you are a programmer,
teacher, document designer, engineer, instructional
designer, information developer, etc.
Understanding is critical to acting intelligently in
relation to communication design, e.g., how
intelligently you are able to act in relation to
technology, managing technical specialists,
deciphering research on communication design, etc.
Understanding interacts with interest.
Understanding requires some understanding of
systems theory, the social and cultural forces that
have shaped and are shaping technology and
literacy, etc.
Understanding communication design does not
mean you can explain it. Explanation helps
understanding.
Adopted from:
Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Understanding Ourselves as Information
Systems / Communication Designers
§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 
§ 
Understanding Just as no single correct, complete, or
ideal understanding of communication design can
exist, there can be identifiably incorrect
understandings.
Conversations about communication design generally
emphasize the products or processes of writing, their
usefulness, importance, strengths and limitations, etc.
Understanding is conveyed through narratives
containing key ideas such as orality and literacy,
scientific and technical society, discourse, design, etc.
A deep understanding of communication design
requires a knowledge of deeper things such as stateof-the-art technologies and historical developments in
rhetoric, literacy, communication, and design.
Insightful problem solving is possible with deep
understanding.
Deep involvement is required for deep understanding.
Adopted from:
Bereiter, C. (2002). Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Instructors:
Emerging
Digital
Literacies
l 
l 
Current strategies for
integrating MOOC
learning into existing
educational spaces
Online education is
always changing (nonstable), instructionally
and professionally.
Adopted from:
Coppola, N. W., Hiltz, S. R., & Rotter, N. G. (2002) Becoming a virtual professor: Pedagogical roles and asynchronous learning
networks, Journal of Management Information Systems, 18 (4) 169–189.
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., Weigel, M., & Robinson, A. J. (2006). Confronting the challenges of participatory
culture: Media education for the 21st century. An Occasional paper for digital media and learning. MacArthur Foundation.
Available online:
http://digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/{7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E}/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF
Instructors: A Rhetorical Design
Approach to Teaching Online and Off
l 
A rhetorical design approach/pedagogy
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
Focuses on critical role of rhetorical
invention, investigative and symbolic
technologies and processes of emergent
knowledge (writing and design as epistemic)
Critiques scientific and technical objectivity
as driving principles in the construction of
arguments/texts/designs
Examines various materialities and spaces,
contested and established
Highlights audience, community, and
participation (concepts, values, traditions,
and style)
Assesses and critiques reductivism and
determinism in scientific and technological
contexts and cultures.
Adopted from:
Mehlenbacher, B., & Kelly, A. R. (2012). Integrating social media into online educational spaces: Modeling professional
practice in instructional interactions. Computers and Writing 2012. Raleigh, NC: NC State.
Miller, C. R. (1979). A humanistic rationale for technical writing. College English, 40 (6), 610-617.
Higher Education and Global Economic
Collapse
l 
l 
l 
l 
l 
Expansion of American universities in 1940s connected to
enormous expansion of world economy
Reduction in monopoly of socioeconomically advantaged
in 1970s
Global economic stagnation results in reduced state
investment and investment in external funding
During 1980s and 1990s, universities increasingly
privatized, the professoriate stabilizes, creation of adjunct
(contingent) culture
Today, universities under attack for serving student
population poorly (in the light of scarcity) and under attack
from anti-intellectual consumer culture of the U.S.
Adopted from:
Bousquet, M. (2008). How the University Works: Higher Education and the Low-Wage Nation. NY, NY: NYU Press.
Edsall, T. B. (2012). The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity will Remake American Politics. NY, NY: Doubleday.
Greer, J. M. (2011). The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers.
Heinberg, R. (2011). The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers.
Wallerstein, I. (2012). Higher education under attack. Energy Bulletin, March 1. Available online:
http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2012-03-02/higher-education-under-attack