How MOOCs will take over the world

Everyone in the e-learning world is talking about MOOCs right now. In a lot of ways they aren't anything new; just the stuff we've been doing for a decade or two, scaled up rather dramatically. They are succeeding and failing in interesting ways - they are getting very large numbers of enrolments, but they have enormous drop-out rates. There are all sorts of questions and assertions floating around, ranging from "are they a fad, with no quality learning emerging from them" to "they are going to destroy all Universities within five years".

In reality, they are just a segment of the existing spectrum of learning experiences. In fact it's more than a spectrum - there are multiple dimensions in play. Perhaps something like this would start to give a picture of where they sit:

The claims that MOOCs will take over the world are driven largely by economics, ignoring the various types of learning experience that exist, and the value each of them delivers. The argument is basically that if Stanford can deliver the best quality lectures on a topic, and can give them out for free, then other Universities won't be able to compete, and people will stop coming to Unis.

There are two reasons we enrol in a course. Firstly, to learn; and secondly, to be able to claim knowledge. The 10% or so of people currently finishing their MOOC courses are interested in the first part - the learning. Currently a certificate of completion from a MOOC doesn't hold a lot of value in the employment market, so the ability to claim knowledge from these courses is a bit tenuous. I believe that this is a very significant factor in the drop-out rates - it doesn't matter if you fail a MOOC, and further, it doesn't matter if you pass. So the second reason for enrolling, that extrinsic motivator which pushes us through the hard parts and the boring parts, is a lot weaker for MOOCs. We won't start to see more normal patterns of completion in MOOCs until this changes.

The thing that will change it is employer acceptance of MOOC courses as valid indicators of expertise in a topic. This will be a gradual process, as awareness of these courses becomes greater.

(Warning: here's where I start waffling about what would happen in an ideal world). What is really needed is some decent certification of courses - probably to be done by the industry bodies that already certify University degrees in many disciplines. To do it properly, you'd need a set of standard learning objectives in each discipline, and then each MOOC could get itself certified to a certain level against those learning objectives by these independent industry bodies. Only by doing this will learners be able to objectively demonstrate that a collection of courses they have done - from MOOCs, Universities and commercial training bodies - is equivalent to a University degree. What's more, it opens up the ability to demonstrate narrower or wider expertise, or cross-disciplinary expertise.

It's an interesting time - I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in this space. I'd hate to see Universities go, but I'd love to see degree structures shaken up and for people to have the ability to create their own degrees from a range of sources.