Presentation and discussion at University of Hertfordshire Business School

1. Let’s talk about
MOOCs
Business models, research and pedagogy:
the year after the year of the MOOC
George Roberts
OCSLD, Oxford Brookes University
May 2015

2. Agenda
• Introduction
• Research
• Pedagogy
• Business models

3. INTRODUCTION

4. QUESTION: If SOPA/PIPA had
been passed into U.S. law in
2002, would Wikipedia exist
today? If either law had passed in
2012, would Wikipedia exist in
2022? Why or why not? Discuss.
If you cannot answer
that question, you are
not literate nor are you
in control of your life—
even if you think you are.

5. Background

6. cMOOCs from 2008
MOOCs were … were intended to be a challenge to
the traditional notion of a course (Jenny Mackness)
• Explicit pedagogical perspective
– Social constructivist, dialogic, actor networks
• Distributed, open source platform components
– Wikis, WordPress, Moodle
• Intentional social media conversations
– Twitter, Facebook, Blogs
• Open challenge to institutions
– Access, environment, IPR, assessment

7. xMOOCs from 2011
When the cavalry charge is being led by the most
prestigious higher ed institutions … it is hard to imagine
it will all blow over… (Bon Stewart)
• Tacit pedagogical perspective
– Instructivist, pragmatic, realist,
– Authentic: employment oriented
• Consolidated platforms
– Incidental social media
• Institutional counter-position
– Elite, neo-colonial (?)

8. Our MOOC
• First Steps into Learning and Teaching in
Higher Education (FSLT12, FSLT13)

9. OER

11. Over 200 signed up
• 60 participated throughout the 6
weeks
• We reached our constituency
• 14 undertook the assessment and
received a certificate
• Participants were from 24 different
countries including Australia,
Canada, India, South Africa, as well
as many European countries &US
Research continuing
• How people learned
• Differential participation
• Design principles
Evaluation

13. Discourses around higher education are:
“… a field of competition for the
legitimate exercise of symbolic
violence,
… an arena of conflict between rival
principles of legitimacy, and
competition for political, economic
and cultural power
(Bourdieu 1993, 121)

15. RESEARCH
http://openbrookes.net/firststeps12/research/dissemination/

16. Question
• At your table, what has the MOOC
experience been?
• Card sort

18. • Native – Immigrant
(Prensky 2001)
• Visitor – Resident
(White & Le Cornu 2011)
• Voyeur – Flaneur
(boyd 2011)
• Liminal participant - Skilled orienteer
(Waite et al 2013)

20. MOOCs as threshold concept
Navigation, transformation, community
• Opening a portal to understanding previously
unknown knowledge
• Preceded by troublesome knowledge
• Liminality: “A suspended state of partial
understanding or stuck place”
(Meyer & Land 2003, Perkins 2006)

21. Navigation
New participants felt overwhelmed by
technology, multiple channels &
perceived need to multi-task.
Experienced MOOCers were judicious
about planning their route and
orienting their participation.

22. Transformation
Ultimately learners experienced a
transformative shift …
but it required reflection on
practice, community support and
self-organization

23. Community
New learners needed time to
determine their audience and core
community…
and to realize reciprocal
relationships.

24. MOOCs as third space
• Rapidly hybridising novel expressions of
higher education (Roberts, et al 2013)
– cMOOCs, xMOOCs, pMOOCs, etcMOOCs
– Intermediate forms, syntheses, compromises or
novel solutions, arise
• Proxy for the historical conversation about
continuing, professional, open, online,
distance and blended learning (Stewart 2012)

26. PEDAGOGIES

27. Pedagogies
Structured, dialogic, conversational & connected
activity-based pedagogies of engagement
• self, peer and tutor feedback
• Socially constructed
– knowledge, community, roles, rules, tools, actors and outcomes
• Learner-centered, participatory design for inclusion,
– access, diversity, equality problems remain
• Scholarly and professional
– critical reflection
– academic credit & marking criteria
• Live sessions with special guests
• Intentional social media conversations
• Technology supported, open platform

28. • A focus on the course and the platform
ignores the experience of the MOOC learner
• MOOCs offer an unlimited number of
possibilities for hybridization because,
whatever else, they offer participants the
opportunity to fashion their own learning
according to their needs.

29. • Aggregate
– Filter, select and gather information
meaningful to the individual,
• Remix
– Interpret this information bringing
one’s own perspective and insights,
• Repurpose
– Refashion it to suit individual
purposes, and then
• Feed forward
– Share it with others, to learn from
each other
The other kind of MOOC
embraces a simple business
ideology, and as such is almost
the antithesis to [this] kind.
Peter Sloep http://bit.ly/LBwImp
• Explicit pedagogical
perspective
– Social constructivist, dialogic,
actor networks
• Distributed, OS platform
– WordPress, Moodle, Wikis
• Intentional social media
conversations
Approach
Open Academic Practice

30. BUSINESS MODELS

31. • Bonk (2013) identifies 22
types of MOOC with 20
Leadership Principles and
12 business models.
• The numbers are
changing and boundaries
are fuzzy.
• There is stratification
going on at the
innovative end of
traditional educational
institutions.
A bubble?

32. Andy Wharhol, 1986
• Monetize
– Accreditation
– Tuition
– Publications
– Recruitment
– ???
• Or… sell picks and
shovels to the
Klondikers
– MOOCs as platforms
Cowboy
economics?

33. Forgetthemassive?

34. Reasons for developing OOCs
• Improving the global learner experience
• Fulfilling the university’s social/global/community
educative mission
• Enhancing reputation and increasing visibility
• Showcase own expertise
• Sell books
• Increasing reach
– Better serve (retain) existing clients
– Attract new clients
– Earn more revenue

35. Question
• What would your reasons for be for
developing open online “courses”?
• Card sort

36. Thank you
Dr George Roberts
OCSLD, Oxford Brookes University
May 2013
groberts@brookes.ac.uk

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