MOOCs: The Future of Higher Education?

Despite many exciting developments and applications, free online courses do still have many limitations – meaning MOOCs are a long way from being able to replace traditional university degrees. This is largely due to the challenges of providing support and assessment for MOOC students. A single academic may be able to develop and teach a MOOC – but s/he will simply not be able to interact with and assess the thousands of students around the world who take the course.

As Choudaha says, “MOOCs are not for all – they serve a particular segment of students who are seeking learning opportunities from premier brands at no cost and convenience of time. It is not for students seeking full-time educational credential.”

In addition to the lack of faculty support, limitations also include the lack of face-to-face interaction with other students, and lack of access to lab facilities and other resources.

However, MOOC providers are working to tackle these challenges. Coursera, for instance, uses a system where questions can be asked in a forum for other students to answer. Regularly asked questions which cannot be tackled by other students move to the top, where they can be addressed by professors. Students who perform well in a course are invited back as volunteer ‘community teaching assistants’, helping to coach others.

EdX operates a similar system, with forums monitored by teaching assistants and program managers, who look out for trending topics or specific challenges which cannot be solved by users. An experimental format where students are grouped into small sections with a teaching assistant is also being trialed.

Improvements in technology have gone some way to tackling the issue of the lack of lab space, says an edX spokesperson: “Some courses lend themselves to online, virtual labs. For example, in ‘Circuits & Electronics’, the course includes a circuit builder lab where learners can ‘build’ circuits and test their effectiveness. And in ‘Biology: The Secret of Life’, students used sophisticated protein folding software to see and play with the molecular structure of proteins.”

So, are MOOCs the future of higher education? While opinion is divided on just what role MOOCs can or should play, there is widespread agreement that they will continue to grow in importance.

For most, the true value of MOOCs lies in their capacity to open up access to knowledge that was previously the preserve of a small elite. Whether preparing for or supplementing a traditional course, or just learning for the sake of learning, MOOCs offer an incredible and unique opportunity which just five years ago would not have existed.

A spokesperson for edX outlines the MOOC provider’s lofty aims: “By making high quality education available to anyone with internet access, edX hopes to democratize education, transform lives worldwide, and reinvent campus education.”

Choudaha is optimistic that MOOC platforms will find ways to overcome many of the challenges they face. “Given the pace of change of technology, learning and quality assurance models, MOOCS will evolve and expand access, especially for 'glocal students' who want to access international learning opportunities without leaving their home country.” 

As well as opening up access, MOOCs may also have a role to play in improving universities’ delivery of course materials, and ability to track the effectiveness of different teaching methods. A spokesperson for HarvardX (Harvard’s edX branch) says, “The large number of students involved and dynamic interaction will allow us to conduct research on how learners learn and teachers teach.”

It’s early days yet, but the massive impact MOOCs have already had in a short space of time suggests we may well be witnessing something of a revolution in higher education delivery. Whether in the improvement of access worldwide, or the supplementation of programs within existing university communities, it seems MOOCs may well be a leading element in the future of higher education.

This article is adapted from the QS Top Grad School Guide 2013/14.