Fred McGinn, Director, School of Health and Human Performance

Response to “The MOOC Completion Conundrum” http://innovationinsights.wired.com/insights/2014/08/mooc-completion-conundrum-can-born-digital-fix-online-education

The following comments are derived from my involvement in the planning and teaching of two separate Dalhousie MOOCs this past year.

To fully comprehend the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) phenomena we must recognize that MOOCs offer education grounded in freedom of use and diversity of learning. The majority of MOOCs are free, unrestricted and accessible to all. To evaluate them based upon traditional university measures (e.g., retention) is to miss the unique value MOOCs offer both the student and the sponsoring university. When compared to a university credit, the value of a MOOC certificate is minimal. University students would not register for courses without the assurance of formal recognition and the rewards their degree provides. MOOCS, on the other hand, attract persons whose primary goal (and reward) is to learn in an individually defined manner.

Gratuitous, universal access opens the MOOC door to more disparate learners than those found in a traditional university course (class or online). This diversity is to be expected when the restriction for participation is virtually removed. Hence, some MOOC learners are “window shopping”, (i.e., freely entering and exiting courses to satisfy curiosity or to find the best fit) while others set a learning pace based solely on their desire to better understand specific content. Unlike a university course, pressure to complete is absent in MOOCs. Therefore, determining their value based on the number of certificates administered is like measuring the success of a drunk-driving campaign utilizing the number of citations issued. The tickets only reflect those drivers caught breaching the law, not those whose behaviour was positively altered by the campaign.

For universities to reap the rewards offered by MOOCs, faculty and administrators must resist the urge to view them in traditional pedagogical light. An early exit does not necessarily negate learning or depreciate the MOOC’s impact on student learning. Furthermore, the enrollment numbers are beyond anything universities have ever experienced. “M” stands for massive. With little advertising, our two MOOCs attracted 2500 students, of which approximately 400 received certificates of completion.

MOOCs provide universities an opportunity to reach well beyond the confines of their gates into a waiting, and in many cases needy, community of learners. Whether driven by altruism or public relations, universities offering MOOCs are playing in entirely new pedagogical sandbox.