While it’s not particularly earthshattering
news, separate reports from the Teachers College at Columbia University and
Bellwether Education have concluded that massive open online courses (MOOCs)
are not going to be as disruptive as first predicted. They’re not going to
disappear either.
Both studies concluded MOOCs will ultimately be incorporated into online education efforts by colleges
and universities.
“It seems clear that MOOCs are neither the
cataclysmic disrupter that advocates predicted nor the flash in the pan their
critics were hoping for,” wrote Andrew P. Kelly, director for the Center on
Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute and author of the
Bellwether report.
The 211-page Columbia study also found no indication that colleges will see a return on investment in the free
online courses. However, the report predicted MOOCs will eventually become more
like current online courses, available to students willing to pay for them.
“MOOCs have inspired a lot of thought, but
people are not necessarily deciding what their goals are in advance, then using
MOOCs to address those goals,” Fiona Hollands, co-author of the Columbia
report, told Bloomberg.
“They’re spending an awful lot of money and not necessarily knowing whether
it’s effective.”
