A great read from Steve Kolowich at The Chronicle of Higher Ed: http://chronicle.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/article/Universities-in-Consortium/139919/
The author examines the future of MOOC's and online infrastructure at research universities by citing a paper from a Consortium [https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/716121/cic-online-learning-collaboration-a-vision-and.pdf] comprised of Provosts from BIG TEN schools that warn of certain dangers associated with the rapid growth of business vendors like Blackboard and Coursera dictating educational instruction delivery systems. The author reports on the pitfalls of non-researched technologies listed by the Consortium, in which hype of new technologies like Coursera and MOOC's "allows the inmates to run the asylum" and create problems over intellectual property rights as well as access to information sharing.
While technologies like MOOC's provide greater access to content for students all over the world, the question of logistics for teachers to manage classes of thousands of students creates problems with feedback and personalized assessment for growth. Still, the battle over technology use in academia appears to have an arduous journey as schools decide how to balance a growing demand for online educational courses and institutional control. The advancement of technology use in education represents change to the system, and with this change, resistance will be inevitable. However, greater control over intellectual property by universities and sharing resources among schools in conferences helps students in these networks, but as educators we must consider all potential students. The importance of open access courses with education in some capacity, must be a part of future academic programs.
The author examines the future of MOOC's and online infrastructure at research universities by citing a paper from a Consortium [https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/716121/cic-online-learning-collaboration-a-vision-and.pdf] comprised of Provosts from BIG TEN schools that warn of certain dangers associated with the rapid growth of business vendors like Blackboard and Coursera dictating educational instruction delivery systems. The author reports on the pitfalls of non-researched technologies listed by the Consortium, in which hype of new technologies like Coursera and MOOC's "allows the inmates to run the asylum" and create problems over intellectual property rights as well as access to information sharing.
While technologies like MOOC's provide greater access to content for students all over the world, the question of logistics for teachers to manage classes of thousands of students creates problems with feedback and personalized assessment for growth. Still, the battle over technology use in academia appears to have an arduous journey as schools decide how to balance a growing demand for online educational courses and institutional control. The advancement of technology use in education represents change to the system, and with this change, resistance will be inevitable. However, greater control over intellectual property by universities and sharing resources among schools in conferences helps students in these networks, but as educators we must consider all potential students. The importance of open access courses with education in some capacity, must be a part of future academic programs.
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