Burck Smith, CEO and founder of online education firm
StraighterLine, may be showing his age in his recent blog post.
After all, he references Marky-Mark, the leader of a 1990s hip-hop group who
ultimately grew up into award-winning actor Mark Wahlberg.
Smith’s point is that massive open online courses
(MOOCs) will almost certainly grow up, just as Wahlberg did, once the
excitement of the moment dissipates. When that happens, firms such as Coursera
and Udacity are going to have to produce revenue, which will likely mean they will
no longer be massive, open, or free.
“As providers of open content and open courseware have
recognized over the past 15 years, simply making content free doesn’t change
the dynamics of the higher education market at all,” Smith wrote. “Further,
free content isn’t very good business, just ask the newspaper industry—and
their content changes every day.”
Students earning credit for online courses taken will
be the key to sustainability.
“Only those who have created a low-cost, low-risk
pathway to credit will have results to show,” Smith continued. “It is the hard
work necessary to create this pathway that transforms flash-in-the-pan
Marky-Mark organizational models to mature and sustainable Mark Wahlberg ones.”
