MOOCsAre Not Cheaper Than Conventional Courses

The Linux Foundation is offering the course "Introduction to Linux" (LFS101x) starting 3rd Quarter 2014, through edX. The course is free to "Audit", or $US250 with a Certificate of Achievement. While that may sound cheap for a course, consider that the completion rate for MOOCs is about 10%, less than one fifth that of more conventional online courses. Factoring in the student's chance of completion, MOOCs may be no cheaper than conventional on-line courses.

Technology Plus Traditional Teaching for an On-line Education Revolution

My notes for "MOOCs with Books" at IR and Friends, 4pm 8 July, at CSIRO in Canberra, are available for comment. Both the Slides and notes are available.Book at Eventbrite.
I will be presenting again for the SA E-learning Support Services Webinar, 1pm 17 September and ACS Branch Forum, 12 November 2013 in Canberra.

A quiet revolution is taking place in Australia's schools, TAFEs and universities, with education moving on-line. Award winning education designer Tom Worthington will provide an overview of the trends and its implications for education:

1. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS)
2. Social media for education
3. Open Source e-Portfolio software
4. Cloud based Learning Management Systems (LMS)
5. e-Book textbooks
6. Portable course-ware formats

See also:

1. Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques
2. A Green Computing Professional Education Course Online
3. On-line Professional Education For Australian Research-Intensive Universities in the Asian Century

Florida Students Allowed On-line Courses

The US state of Florida has passed legislation removing restrictions on online courses for school students (CS/HB 7029 2013). There are sixteen pages of amendments to existing education legislation. These remove restrictions on using on-line courses from outside the state, limits on class size and times when courses can be delivered

There is also a requirement for auditing of the "Florida Virtual School" (FVS).  This seems to have been an earlier initiative to provide on-line courses across the state and also teacher training. The tone of the Act suggests the legislators are not happy with the performance of FSV.

ANU MOOCs for Exploring Education Not Profit

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington,  Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) is reprising her keynote presentation to the THETA conference ‘Navigating the Edge of the World’. Professor Hughes-Warrington started by explaining that as a historian, she could use her skills to get a perspective on on-line education, and MOOCs in particular. When exploring a new territory, the explorers project their own wishes on the unknown.

Professor Hughes-Warrington explained that as a new initiative MOOCs are an exploration, not a business venture for ANU. At the same time she argued that MOOCs have very large numbers of students and so there is potential for this being treated as a startup, which would later earn income.

Professor Hughes-Warrington pointed out that many of those undertaking MOOCs are school students and those with degrees. The MOOC therefore can act as a way to connect with potential students.

Professor Hughes-Warrington discussed how ANU is adapting to on-line education. There are obvious synergies between MOOCs and traditional on-line courses. ANU has been offering on-line and blended courses for many years (I have been running COMP7310 on-line since 2009).

Professor Hughes-Warrington also discussed more flexible evidence based forms of assessment, using e-portfolios. This is particularly applicable, in my view, for postgraduate education.

Professor Hughes-Warrington poitned out ANU has a Course Assessment: Consultation and Finalisation policy. ANU students are required to be consulted about the proposed assessment at the start of a course. The logistics of how to do this with a course having a large number of students is challenging. In my view the ANU policy should be dropped for other reasons: it is unfair on the students. As a student, one of the primary criteria I use to select a course is the assessment. If the assessment is changed after the course starts, then the student is not getting what they signed up for.

One area I suggest need to be explored is to look at education from the point of view of the learner, not the educator. Spending a year as a student of higher education, the most important insight was how hard it was being a student and how administrative problems were so frustrating. One of the advantages of e-learning is that it puts problems with administration out in the open, where hopefully they will be solved.

ANU is taking a cautious approach to MOOCs, as was done with the ANU e-Press. In my view there is a risk that other institutions may over-invest in free on-line courses, with the irrationally exuberant idea that some time soon, somehow, this will make them money. We may be at the beginning of a MOOC bubble which will burst within a year, bankrupting universities and companies, much like the  1990s Dot.COM bubble.

ps: I will be speaking on "MOOCs with Books" in the CSIRO Seminar Room at ANU, 4pm, 8 July 2013.

Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning

The ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science needed some topics for student research projects, so I submitted one on "Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning" (Project Code: CECS_912).  This is based on some recent investigation into e-learning and longstanding frustration with the limitations of current e-learning software. An example of a previous successful student project is Junran Lei's Semantic Web for Museums, for COMP 6703 eScience, 2006.

Student research opportunities

Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning

Project Code: CECS_912

This project is available at the following levels:
CS single semester, Honours, Masters

Keywords:

asynchronous learning, synchronous learning, electronic learning, web conference, videoconferencing, pedagogy, MOOC

Supervisor:

Mr Tom Worthington

Outline:

On-line learning research literature uses the terms synchronous and asynchronous to describe tools and learning activities. This project will investigate software tools which will permit breaking down this division. It is proposed that syncronisation of asynchronous learning can address problems with large scale e-learning, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The combination of synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning could be used to promote a constructivist approach. This could be done by relaxing the current lockstep approach of packages such as Blackboard Collaborate, where the aim is for all the class to see precisely the same images on screen at precisely the same time. As well as imposing severe limited on the equipment, this also limits the opportunity for the student to build their own internal model by exploring the topic for themselves, as they have to keep up with the live presentation. Relaxing the real time aspect would also the student time for reflection and to be able to explore the materials themselves, within a time limit.

Goals of this project

Provide a theoretical framework to synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning and implement a free open source prototype to demonstrate this in practice.

Requirements/Prerequisites

Training, experience or an interest in teaching would be an advantage.

Student Gain

Software and tools to support e-learning is a growth industry worldwide.

Background Literature

Worthington, T. (2013). Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques. In Proceedings of 2013 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 26 Apr - 28 Apr 2013 , Sri Lanka.

Preprint available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9556

Presentation notes: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/moocs_with_books/

Links

Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: MOOCs with Books

Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning

The ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science needed projects for students to do, I created one on "Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning". This topic can then be tailored to the student's level (undergraduate to masters) and interests (software development or theory):

Student research opportunities

Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning

Project Code: CECS_912

This project is available at the following levels:
CS single semester, Honours, Masters

Keywords:

asynchronous learning, synchronous learning, electronic learning, web conference, videoconferencing, pedagogy, MOOC

Supervisor:

Mr Tom Worthington

Outline:

On-line learning research literature uses the terms synchronous and asynchronous to describe tools and learning activities. This project will investigate software tools which will permit breaking down this division. It is proposed that syncronisation of asynchronous learning can address problems with large scale e-learning, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The combination of synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning could be used to promote a constructivist approach. This could be done by relaxing the current lockstep approach of packages such as Blackboard Collaborate, where the aim is for all the class to see precisely the same images on screen at precisely the same time. As well as imposing severe limited on the equipment, this also limits the opportunity for the student to build their own internal model by exploring the topic for themselves, as they have to keep up with the live presentation. Relaxing the real time aspect would also the student time for reflection and to be able to explore the materials themselves, within a time limit.

Goals of this project

Provide a theoretical framework to synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning and implement a free open source prototype to demonstrate this in practice.

Requirements/Prerequisites

Training, experience or an interest in teaching would be an advantage.

Student Gain

Software and tools to support e-learning is a growth industry worldwide.

Background Literature

Worthington, T. (2013). Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques. In Proceedings of 2013 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 26 Apr - 28 Apr 2013 , Sri Lanka.

Preprint available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9556

Presentation notes: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/moocs_with_books/

Links

Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: MOOCs with Books

Report on Coursera MOOCs at Edinburgh University

The 42 page document "MOOCs at Edinburgh 2013: Report Number 1" by the "MOOCs@Edinburgh Group", details the student experience with the first six Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) run by Edinburgh University as part of the Coursera consortium. The report suggests to me that MOOCs are most popular with university academics wanting to learn about e-learning and current students supplementing conventional courses. Also it suggests that the workload of on-line university courses should be half that of face-to-face courses (four, rather than eight hours a week).

The 5 and 7 week University of Edinburgh courses were run in 20013, with a total enrollment of over 300,000 students (which the report curiously calls "learners"). Courses were offered in Philosophy; E-­‐learning, Artificial Intelligence, Astrobiology, Equine Nutrition and Critical Thinking. AI was at Masters level and the others undergraduate.

40% of those enrolled used the the course web site in the first week, by week five this had dropped to 29%. From a survey conducted, this was the first MOOC for 75% for 53% their only MOOC. Students were typically from the USA or UK, 25 to 34 years old and of age. Most interestingly, Teachers and current university students were the most represented groups, with 40% already having a degree. This suggests that MOOCs are being taken by teachers looking to learn about them and current university students supplementing their conventional courses. This suggests that good areas to address with MOOCs are teacher training (particularly in e-learning) and short modules to supplement existing courses (not whole courses).

Students were happy with the MOOCs. Students spent 2 to 4 hours per week studying per MOOC. This is far less than the 8 to 10 hours typically required for a university course. Four hours might be a more realist figure for universities to aim for part time students to spend on a course and is likely to be a more realistic figure for how much time they really do spend. With this time budget, course designers could then cut unproductive parts of courses, such as lectures (live and prerecorded).

12% of the students were issued with Statements of Accomplishment (SoAs). This is far lower than I would expect from a typical university course which might have around 75% of the students to complete the course and pass.

It took University of Edinburgh ten months from starting discussions with Coursera to the first delivery of six courses. This seems very fast progress, I would expect this would typically take eighteen months to two years.

ps: I will be speaking on "MOOCs with Books" at ANU in Canberra, 4pm, 8 July 2013

Engaging India Through a MOOC to Disrupt the Hegemonic Discourse

Greetings from the University of Canberra, where presenters from Canberra are practicing their presentations for the HERDSA conference in a few weeks time. Dr Lyndsay Agans, Digital Learning Convenor at the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific is describing the background to the development of a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) "Engaging India", to be run by Dr McComas Taylor. One feature that sets this course apart is that it will be the first MOOC to be offered in both English and Hindi. This course will be ten weeks long and available free to anyone, anywhere.

Apart from the technical and pedagogical aspects of how to design a MOOC, the is the interesting question of why design a MOOC and why students would enroll in one.

Designing Elearning MOOC

The "Designing Elearning MOOC" (deMOOC) by CoachCarole looks interesting, as it uses conventional e-learning tools, such as Moodle and Mahara. It also uses a conventional e-learning approach of a text rich e-book with embedded video. This contrasts with many of MOOCs I have tried which emphases video, with no or poor text alternatives and a beta release learning management system.

However, I can't work out who, or what "CoachCarole" is (a company? Where are they based?). The MOOC lacks (or I can't find), this context about who has prepared the course, or why.

Report on the Nature and Impact of MOOCs

The report "MOOCs: Cutting Through the Hype" by Kate Worlock and Laura Ricci of Outsell Inc, provides a good overview of where MOOCs came from, who is providing them, who is taking them and what the future holds. The report lists the business models for the MOOC providers, from simply acting as a way to market conventional courses, to offering add on services, such as certificates and tutoring for a fee. The authors point out that like other distance education students, MOOC students are older and are from different background to the typical university student and may not be looking for a small amount of training, not a full degree. This is a very good report for university administrators and academics wondering what all the fuss is about.

MOOCs with Books, 8 July, CSIRO Seminar Room, ANU, Canberra

Tom Worthington will speak on MOOCs with Books: Syncronisation of large scale asynchronous e-learning, 4pm to 5pm, Monday, 8 July 2013, in the CSIRO Seminar Room, CSIT building, on the ANU Campus, North Road, Canberra.

Topic

A quiet revolution is taking place in Australia's schools, TAFEs and universities, with education moving on-line. Award winning education designer Tom Worthington will provide an overview of the trends and its implications for education:

1. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS)
2. Social media for education
3. Open Source e-Portfolio software
4. Cloud based Learning Management Systems (LMS)
5. e-Book textbooks
6. Portable course-ware formats

Biography:
Tom Worthington is an independent ICT consultant and an adjunct lecturer in computer science at the Australian National University.

Tom designed the on-line sustainability courses for both the ACS certification program and the ANU Master of IT. In 1999 he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy.   Tom is a Past President of the Australian Computer Society, Fellow, Honorary Life Member and Certified Computer Professional, as well as a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

See also:

1. Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques
2. A Green Computing Professional Education Course Online
3. On-line Professional Education For Australian Research-Intensive Universities in the Asian Century

About the Host
IR and Friends is a discussion group for people working in information retrieval, data mining and document computing fields. Everyone is welcome. We meet every second Monday, from 4-5pm, in the CSIRO seminar room in the ANU CS&IT building. CSIRO are kind enough to provide wine (and soft drinks) and cheese.
"IR and friends" aims to encourage discussion between people working in similar fields; to provide a venue for feedback on work in progress; and to get people from different groups talking to each other.

Open2Study Needs More Work

Open Universities Australia (OUA), are offering nine free on-line courses on their Open2Study page. Over the last few weeks I have been trying one of these:  Writing for the Web", but was unable to complete the course. Open2Study shows some promise, but the web interface needs to be greatly improved. Also an option for downloading content needs to be added

These courses looked appealing as they were only four weeks long each, much shorter than the full semester courses from other MOOC providers. The suggested study time is 2 to 4 hours per week, much less than a typical university course (about 12 hours a week) and much more manageable. .Also the courses were authored by an Australian organization, not a US one (and an organization with extensive experience in on-line education).

Unfortunately the start of the course coincided with my traveling in Asia. As a result I had intermittent Internet access and only limited time to study, with the Internet access not coinciding with the study time. This showed a fundamental flaw in the design of the course: I could not find a way to download the course materials for later study (I provide my students with an eBook). The course design assumed I would have a live Internet connection while I was studying.

Each topic in the course has a series of short videos. These videos have closed captions and an "interactive" transcript. What would have been more useful than the interactive transcript, would have been a workbook of notes, or even just a simple file with the text in it.

Each topic started with a quiz question. If I got the question wrong, I was told "Incorrect" and was offered a hint, but the hints seemed to consist of a video with no transcript, which was not a lot of use. If I got the question right I did not get anything to say it was right, the system just presented me another video, again with no transcript. As a result I did not know what was going on (I did not have enough bandwidth normally to play the videos).

So what happened was each week I would get a reminder by email from the system to say I had work to do. But that was about all I got. There did not seem to be an fostering of discussion between students and no prompts by email about the actual cruse content. As a result I was not motivated to actually look at the content in the rare moments when I had time to do so and also had a working Internet connection.

One peculiarity of the system is that I collected some "badges" along the way, even though I had not undertaken any of the course activities. I understand that these badges are supposed to be a lightweight way to motivate students. But if they accumulate badges not having done anything, that is going to confuse, rather than motivate.

The web interface for the course had some problems (which is a little ironic, as the course is about the web). I found I could display a list of modules for the course from "My Study Center". But I could not access any of the modules from this list. There was a button marked "Got to Classroom" which would take me to a video in the course. I never worked out which video it was taking me to. The interface does not highlight all the hypertext links and so I spent a considerable amount of time clicking on assorted text on the screen hoping that I could find the actual course content, but seemed to get stuck on this screen. In the end I concluded that either the course was locked away somewhere I could not find, or this was all there was. It was a very frustrating experience. Normally there would be some sort of forum where students would discuss the topic, but I never found this.

Back from my trip, with high speed Internet access I tried the last module of the course, with video. It worked reasonably well and I was able to get 100% in the last test. But it was now too late to go back and do the other modules.

As this course is assessed I worried that my lack of progress would count against me (I tutor in a OUA course and would not want this recorded against me as a "fail"). So I attempted to withdraw. This proved very difficult. After posting a question and waiting a week or so, I noticed at the bottom of the course page a message waiting for me from a staff member explaining that I needed to go to "my study center", select "actions" and click on "withdraw". Even this proved difficult, as clicking on "actions" moved the cursor to the top of the page. After a few attempts I found that if I first clicked on "actions" and then scrolled down the page, there was a pull down menu with "withdraw" on it.

I would have liked to post this as a suggestion to the OUA, but could not find anywhere on the Open2Study website for suggestions and no-post course feedback form.

Mobiles and e-learning for Pandemic Flu Response

Tom Worthington will be speaking on "Mobiles and e-learning for Pandemic Flu Response" to members of the Sahana Software Foundation, 5:30pm to 6:30pm, Tuesday, 7 May 2013 at the Virtusa Auditorium  (Orion City), 752 Dr Danister De Silva Mawatha, Colombo 09, Sri Lanka. See also:

• E-government for emergencies: dealing with a bird flu pandemic using the wireless web and podcasting
• MOOCs with Books

MOOCs from Singapore

In the discussion of "MOOCs with Books" in Singapore on Wednesday, it was mentioend that National University of Singapore had joined Coursera, one of the US based Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) consortia.They have a course in "Unpredictable? Randomness, Chance and Free Will", by Valerio Scarani and "Write Like Mozart: An Introduction to Classical Music Composition", by Peter Edwards. Nanyang Technological University (NTU) have an interesting series of articles about e-learning, including MOOCs, in their Momentum Newsletter.

Lessons for Public Education from a US For-profit University

"The Idea of the Digital University: Ancient Traditions, Disruptive Technologies and the Battle for the Soul of Higher Education" by Frank Bryce McCluskey and Melanie Lynn Winter (2012) is a book which is thought provoking, but does not quite live up to the subtitle's promise of "Ancient Traditions, Disruptive Technologies and the Battle for the Soul of Higher Education".

The authors describe the traditional university, with the professor as a sole practitioner, with no formal training in education, teaching in an isolated classroom of students, year in year out. They discuss the push for on-line education and performance indicators threating this professor. The author's solution appears to be some sort of hybrid system, where the professor accepts a form of team teaching with their colleagues and some  monitoring by professional administrators, but with the academics retaining control of the curriculum.

While the authors start with the idea of a university in ancient Greece, the Library of Alexandra and medieval universities of Europe, the quickly jump to higher education in the USA. The point that the US university is strongly influenced by the German model of 200 years ago is well made. But much has happened with universities in Europe and elsewhere outside of the USA in the last 200 years, which the authors do not address.

The book is from a very narrow perspective: academics involved in a US for-profit US university, suggesting how the US university system can be improved . This book is really about what the "American Public University System" (which is a for-profit company, not a public system), can teach the US state based non-profit universities. The book has some points which may be of global interest, but with insufficient detail.

The description of the European universities of pure centers of learning uninterested in profit seems to not accord with reality. Institutions such as Cambridge University have been making money from their intellectual output and inventions for hundreds of years. Also tutoring was a private for-profit business at Oxbridge for hundreds of years.

The authors also seem to have skipped over significant non-US distance education institutions, such as the UK Open University, which has adapted its techniques from paper and post, through TV to the Internet.

The issue of inclusiveness is an important one covered by the authors. They point out that the metrics on student completion used to measure the effectiveness of universities assume students enroll, study and complete at one institution. Universities which cater for students who would not previously been able to attend university, such as military personnel who are moved so often they can't maintain a program at one physical campus, either rate badly on the conventional measures or are excluded from them.

While an interesting read, there are some problems with the structure of The Idea of the Digital University". The very short chapters are written in a style which reminds me of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (which is also about the nature of education in the USA). The numerous summaries are repetitive (I am sure I read some sentence at least three times). There also appear to be some problems with the Index, referring to incorrect page numbers.

OUA Free Online Courses Look Good

So far, the Open2 Study Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) system from Open Universities Australia (OUA) looks good and much better than any of the US MOOCs I have tried. I enrolled in "Writing for the Web". OUA seem to have anticipated the sort of worries students have and are starting to introduce us to each other on-line, even before the course formally starts. I will discuss some of this in my "MOOCs with Books" series of talks:  Singapore 24 April, Colombo 28 April, CSIRO 8 July, and Canberra 12 November 2013.

MOOCs with Books in Canberra, Colombo and Singapore

I will be speaking on "ICT trends in Education" at the Australian Computer Society meeting in Canberra, 12 November 2013. Also at the CSIRO in Canberra on 8 July, ICCSE 2013 Colombo 28 April and in Singapore 24 April.

MOOCs with Books Talk in Singapore 24 April

I will be giving a free talk on "MOOCs with Books" in Singapore 24 April 2013, hosted by Pearson. Anyone interested in attending, please contact Teck Chuan, Ang at Pearson Singapore. This is a short version of my talk "Syncronisation of Large Scale Asynchronous e-Learning" for the 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2013), 28 April 2013, in Colombo.

MOOCs with Books

Tom Worthington will discuss the implications of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for traditional university education. He will outline why he believes textbooks, in the form of eBooks, will still be key to education, be it on-line or in the classroom. Tom will illustrate this with his own globally accredited on-line course run by Australia's leading university.

1. What is a MOOC?
2. Some MOOC Examples
3. Software and Training for MOOCs
4. Implications for Universities
5. Adapting Traditional Courses for Online Use with books

Tom Worthington is an independent certified computer consultant, and an Adjunct Lecturer in the Research School of Computer Science, College of Engineering and Computer Science at the Australian National University. He teaches ICT sustainability, the design of web sites and use of e-commerce systems. In 1999 Tom was elected a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) for his contribution to the development of public Internet policy and he was Canberra ICT Educator of the Year for 2010. Tom an ACS Past President, Honorary Life Member, Certified Professional and a Certified Computer Professional of the society as well as a voting member of the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Scalable learning with massive open online courses

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where a panel, including a Nobel Laureate is discussing "Scalable learning: the beautiful paradox of massive open online courses (MOOCs)". The ANU joined the edX consortium a few weeks ago to develop Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The first two MOOCs from ANU will be "Engaging India" and "Astrophysics" taught by Nobel Laureate Professor Schmidt. On the way to the event I picked up a copy of "The Idea of the Digital University: Ancient Traditions, Disruptive Technologies and the Battle for the Soul of Higher Education" I had asked the  ANU Library to purchase, which is very relevant to the panel's deliberations:

ANU has become the only Australian member of edX.org, the online learning enterprise founded by Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with the aim of providing free education to one billion people worldwide within 10 years.

In this seminar, we will hear from the two pairs of academics behind the first ANUx courses:  Professor Brian Schmidt and  Dr Paul Francis, who will be teaching Astrophysics; and Dr McComas Taylor and Dr Peter Friedlander, whose MOOC is called Engaging India.

We will also hear from Dr Lyndsay Agans, Convenor of the CAP Digital Learning Project, who will discuss some of the organisational thinking and approach behind the development of Engaging India. Lyndsay will open a dialogue on the 'paradox' of distance learning and mass scale as one that actually allows for a more personalised design of education for individual needs, and in particular, the implications of the evolving educational theory of teaching in an open and massive online environment.

One analogy used by the panel for the early days of MOOCs is that it is like "flying a plane while still designing it". As someone with a professional technical background, this analogy is troubling: if I subject my clients to an untested system I can expect appear before an ethics committee, or a court. Similar ethical principles should apply to educators. When designing courses, educators need to confirm they are competent to do so and are using proven techniques: to do otherwise is unethical and may be unlawful. What is reasonable to do is create MOOCs using approaches from decades of previous work on e-learning. The way the MOOC runs can be recorded for research purposes, provided the participants are informed and give permission.

The issue of the purpose of MOOCs was also raised in the seminar. The point was made that at present most of those undertaking MOOCs are already at least undergraduate students at a conventional university. So MOOCs are not brining university education to a new group. The MOOCs may be a marketing exercise for universities to attract students away from other institutions, or to attract high school students to a particular discipline.

Those promoting MOOCs may have the idea of opening education and improving the world. However, there is little evidence to suggest this will work in practice, or that the MOOCs have a sustainable business model. However, it should be noted that there are many claims made for MOOCs with new technology, the reality by ANU is likely to be more conservative, based on existing courses, using proven technology and practices, not just made up on the spot.

The MOOCs are obviously not conventional courses. MOOCs will be a blend of course, research project and marketing campaign. But policies and procedures will be needed to see that, whatever they are, MOOCs are well designed, tested and run. Institutional  policies and procedures may need to be adapted and to be applicable to the MOOCs. As an example, a MOOC may use the institution's standard new course proposal form, where the learning objectives, teaching techniques and assessment plan are outlined, but to this may be added a focus group, as usually used for a marketing campaign.

It should be kept in mind that while institutions are not charging for MOOCs, they are still required to conform to various consumer protection, educational and other laws. As an example, all video must have closed captions for the deaf and the web interface must meet accessibility requirements. Also student information is subject to privacy principles, which will limit its use and may prevent the MOOC being hosted in a country which does not have comparable privacy protection.

The format of the MOOC will need to suit its purpose. One model which might suit a broad audience is that of a TV documentary series. This could start with a shot of the professor in the classroom with students, to establish their credentials as an academic. But within a few seconds we would see them in the outside world, demonstrating the topic. This does not require the professor to go to India or outer space, they could be in the library showing a  manuscript, or standing next to the university telescope.

This was an interesting event, at which the nature of education was being redefined. The audience was made up of a who's-who of educational designers and researchers in Canberra, not just from ANU. I will be discussing some of these topics in a free talk on "MOOCs with Books" in Singapore 24 April 2013. This is a short version of my talk "Syncronisation of Large Scale Asynchronous e-Learning" for the 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2013), 28 April 2013, in Colombo.

edX MOOC Software Open Source

The edX consortium have announced they will release their edX software as open source 1 June and Stanford will integrate its Class2Go software with this. However, it is not clear what the functionality of this software is and how it will work alongside existing open source Learning Management Systems, such as Moodle. The emphasis with MOOCs at present seems to be on video and automated testing, much like 1960s computer assisted instruction. Some of the announcements from MOOC consortia are less than credible, such as edX claiming to be able to automatically grade essays (Essay-Grading Software Offers Professors a Break, JOHN MARKOFF, April 4, 2013, NY Times).  There seems to be little regard given to the effort needed to design content for a course and particularly text based materials, nor to what the research on effective on-line pedagogy tells us.  I will discuss some of this in my conference talk on "MOOCs with Books", in late April, in Colombo.