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Faculty Council December 2012 Bruce W. Carney Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost. Massive Open on-line Courses (MOOCs). A brief (and incomplete) history.
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Faculty CouncilDecember 2012Bruce W. CarneyExecutive Vice Chancellor & Provost Massive Open on-line Courses (MOOCs)
A brief (and incomplete) history • The Khan Academy. Free on-line brief lectures prepared by Salman Khan has evolved into an enterprise with 3500 videos. The total number of lessons delivered exceeds two hundred million. www.khanacademy.org • The effort is funded by foundations and individuals; volunteers act as coaches and teachers. • The lessons are quite good, although they’re necessarily static.
The next steps • Salman Khan Sebastian Thrun + Peter Norvig. • July 2011 on-line course in Artificial Intelligence. • 160,000 enrolled; 28,000 completed. • Top 1,000 students were asked for resumes. • Three major platforms emerged quickly.
With funding from Charles River Associates, Thrun • founded Udacity. • Courses, assessments, certificates are free. • Focus is on STEM courses. • Revenue generation uncertain but may come from • modest per-student costs for tutoring, authenticated • certificates, advertising, or, most likely, career • placement services. www.udacity.com
Dec 2011: MITx; May 2012: joined by Harvard, each • investing. $30M. UC Berkeley, Univ. of Texas • system, and Wellesley have also joined. Non-profit, • led by AnantAgarwalfrom MIT. • The first course enrolled 122,000 students. • The revenue model has not been developed or, • at least, it has not been revealed. • Courses have fixed terms, unlike Udacity. • Class discussion boards, automated assessment, • lectures and quizzes. Cannot handle essays etc. yet. https://www.edx.org
Founded by Daphne Koller & Andrew Ng (Jan 2012) • It is a for-profit company, with significant backing, • and appears to be driven to provide a larger suite • of courses. The business model is unclear. • It partners only with “elite” universities, mostly • schools in the U.S., and comparable foreign schools. • Coursera is primarily a platform, with faculty • at member universities developing and • delivering course content, exams, etc. https://www.coursera.org
Issues requiring consideration • Quality of instruction: are static courses suitable, especially if they’re not residential? • Can student-only discussion groups work? • Credentialing the courses. • Course credit? Beginning to emerge in high schools and now at Antioch University. • Revenue generation? • How can development of such courses improve our residential courses, our new hybrid courses in particular?
Why should we engage? • Work with peer universities to learn how to provide quality on-line education, whether it’s to build up our “brand” or to provide major national and international public service. • Learn how to redesign our own courses. • Be part of the rapidly-evolving higher education endeavor.
What are we doing vis-à-vis MOOCs? • Conversations with the deans — identify a set of courses for initial offering. • Establish an advisory committee to help us identify opportunities and risks, both financial and instructional. • Are there selective, revenue-generating opportunities for us beyond the platforms desribed earlier?
Provost’s Task Force on MOOCs: Goals • Direct the development of 3-5 MOOCs. • Develop quality standards and a process for reviewing, approving, and establishing MOOCs at UNC-CH. • Evaluate infrastructure needs. • Explore development of MOOCs for improvements to residential courses, continuing education, and supplemental academic support. • Would like to deliver some by Fall 2013.
Provost’s Task Force on MOOCs: Membership • Carol Tresolini, Chair (Vice Provost) • Valerie Ashby (Chemistry) • Rob Bruce (Friday Center) • Larry Conrad (ITS) • Mike Crimmins (Arts & Sciences) • Gary Marchionini (SILS) • Bill McDiarmid (Education) • Sarah Michalak (Library) • Eric Muller (Law; Center for Faculty Excellence) • John Paul (Public Health) • Dwayne Pinkney (Vice Provost) • Doug Shackleford (Kenan-Flagler Business School) • Louise Spieler (Journalism)
Graduate On-line Courses at UNC • 2tor partnership: MBA@UNC. Small classes; mostly synchronous learning; equivalent to residential experience. Expensive: $89,000 for two years. 2tor does the recruiting; we control admissions; content; delivery. • 2nd 2tor partnership: MPA@UNC. A very similar program set up in the School of Government.
Undergraduate On-line Courses at UNC • 2U (= 2tor) Semester On-line (SON) • Synchronous instruction in small classes for credit. • Announced partners are Brandeis, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rochester, UNC-CH, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest. • MOU signed November 20, 2012.
Undergraduate On-line Courses at UNC • Cost to students is $1400/credit hour. • Universities may limit the number of their students taking such classes. • We will be offering a few classes, but via the Kenan-Flagler Business School. • For UNC, this business model probably cannot work at large scale.