Abstract:

A glance at the literature on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC's) would convince anyone that the topic is one of the most visible issues in education technology, not just in postsecondary education but also K-12 and Vocational and Educational Development (VET). In spite of this high visibility, MOOC's, in aggregate, have barely penetrated the course offerings at colleges and universities. They are still treated as experimental, unique, and relatively threatening interventions, shunned by full-time faculty and ignored by many administrators. By contrast, MOOC's have become hugely popular in many industrial training programs, and are increasing their penetration of previously face-to-face non-academic courses throughout the world. Many businesses are switching from traditional training methods to MOOC-facilitated interventions at an ever-increasing rate. Businesses are quickly and energetically adopting MOOC's – universities aren't.

This article examines three aspects of this peculiar problem. First, we present an overview of the current penetration of MOOC's in postsecondary education, taking note of the worldwide breadth of offerings, particularly in the sciences, but also in the arts, religion, economics, and more. Yet this impressive list of MOOC successes masks the fact that MOOC's are but a tiny fraction of all online offerings in college today. In the United States, for example, about one-third of the 20 million college students are taking at least one course online, and one-sixth are taking all of their courses online, but only about one in a thousand is obtaining academic credits through MOOC's. There are three possible reasons for this condition: high entry-level costs for MOOC implementation, relatively low current completion rates for MOOC courses, and low popularity of MOOC's, and distance education in general by full-time faculty.

Next, we briefly summarize some of the many successes of MOOC's outside the Academy--executive education, vocational training, and other activities. All of these successes seem to be capitalizing on the availability of ubiquitous computer availability at homes and offices, plus cell phone connections anywhere. These learners are not affected the constraints of university obstacles and are taking full advantage of the very high production values offered by MOOC's, plus the availability of the very best presenters and teachers anywhere. The non-academic sector alone is generating annual revenues in the range of low eight figures already.

Finally, we offer some alternatives that could take advantage of the high potential customer populations offered by universities and the interesting and successful MOOC's experience already happening in the business sector by suggesting a long-term trajectory whereby MOOC's can be a major instrument in reducing the unit cost of a college education. There are several significant MOOC projects already achieving this objective, like the popular MS computer science offered by Georgia Tech, mostly through MOOC's, which costs about a fourth the price of the same degree offered and face-to-face mode.

Keywords:

MOOCs, faculty resistance, on line learning.