Over the last five years, massive open online courses
(MOOCs) have become on-demand sessions that allow participants to learn at
their own pace. Changes were also made that allowed providers to monetize the
process by charging for certification.
While a poll from Class Central, a MOOC discovery
platform, found that 64% of respondents said they preferred the changes, there
was also a cost. MOOCs are no longer attracting large numbers of students, and
the learners taking the classes aren’t interacting on discussion forums.
“These days, most MOOC providers let learners start
courses whenever they like (or on a biweekly or monthly basis as Coursera
does),” Dhawal Shah, founder of Class Central, wrote in a column for EdSurge.
“As a result, the forums are far less vibrant and informative than they were in
the early days.”
To find a happy medium, Shah is proposing a MOOC semester
offering a limited catalog of instructor-led courses with a fixed schedule and
soft deadlines. The selected MOOCs would also offer free certificates to students
who meet course requirements by a certain time.
“MOOC
providers abandoned free certificates because they were looking for a
sustainable business model,” he said. “Reintroducing them could reignite some
of the enthusiasm MOOCs initially generated. The potential loss in revenue from
free certificates would be offset by the marketing benefits of reaching more
users.”
