EMERGENCE OF MOOCS

The idea to learn without physical presence is not new. It dates back to 1840 when Sir Isaac Pitman established a course on shorthand learning through weekly tutorials on postcards. Certainly world of distance education has changed a lot in past few years. The journey which started from correspondence course and distance education, travelled across e-learning, and has now entered into a world of online courses commonly known as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). With an initial slow start, now MOOCs have gained momentum with elite and trendsetting Universities launching these courses. Harvard, MIT, University of Virginia, University of Phoenix, Stanford, Yale IITB and IIMB are just to name a few. These courses are available for free or for a minor commercial value dependent upon the number of resources it uses. Some of the more popular portals providing Moocs like Coursera, Edx, Udacity and NPTEL offer courses which cross all language barriers and provide a new learning platform.

When 2012 was declared as “year of MOOC” by The New York Times, it started the online learning revolution with many well-financed service providers teaming up with best universities to offer courses which received enrolment as large as 160,000 students in one year. Many of these portals are funded by non-profit organizations like Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the McArthur Foundation and the National Science Foundation etc. Till date more than a million participants have successfully completed and have been awarded certificates. EDX alone has courses in subjects ranging from Maths, Computers, Ethics, Art and Culture, Economics & Finance, Food and Nutrition, Medicine, Physics and what not.

In a common observation it is said that ‘what Internet did to print media, is what Moocs will be doing to higher education’. It is a kind of what happened in every other industry i.e. Labour replaced by technology. While we cannot have an expert teacher teach a whole lot of students, besides managing his work load and research, we can have a whole lot of students study from the best brain in whole of University, and why not a Nobel laureate. Recent studies show that students find these courses more interesting and ‘intimate’. Its a virtual classroom environment with video lectures, open forums, assignments and reviews. It gives flexibility to student to learn at his own pace. It doesn’t have to be a continuous 2-3 hours session, its not time bound and doesn’t even need a dress code. Learning becomes fun when you overcome your language barrier and make your trainer talk to you alone for hours, solving all your doubts.

As is the case with all technologies, Moocs also have certain shortcomings. Though it gets the curiosity levels high which is reflected in the number of enrolments, not many participants actually complete these courses. Moreover it’s still a tough job convincing employers about the proficiency of a person having certificate of Moocs. Judging the performance by what it has already achieved may not indicate the true potential of this teaching pedagogy. It’s a long way to go and the journey has just started.

References:

http://mfeldstein.com

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304019404577416631206583286

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/opinion/brooks-the-campus-tsunami.html?_r=0

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

http://www.moneycrashers.com/massive-open-online-courses-distance-learning-education/

Mr. Devesh Lowe

Asst. Professor
JIMS ROHINI SEC - 5