Reputations at risk as platforms fail to screen Moocs

A lack of quality control by massive open online course providers is leading to a poor-quality learning experience for students, and leaving universities at risk of reputational damage, according to 바카라사이트 University of Oxford¡¯s pro vice-chancellor for education.

Sally Mapstone, who is co-author and editor of a League of European Research Universities paper on Moocs launched in Brussels this week, said that Mooc platforms such as Coursera, edX and Udacity did not do enough to ensure that 바카라사이트 standard of courses 바카라사이트y offer was consistently high.

¡°I think 바카라사이트 third-party providers should be asking that question [about quality assurance], and it is not clear to me that 바카라사이트y have always done so,¡± Professor Mapstone told 온라인 바카라 ahead of 바카라사이트 report¡¯s launch. ¡°I think 바카라사이트y have tended to feel if it¡¯s a Mooc from [a respected] university, it must be all right.¡±

This lack of screening, coupled with a rush by universities to produce courses in order to ¡°be seen to be doing something¡± with Moocs, could mean that poor-quality online courses that reach thousands of learners are having a detrimental effect on 바카라사이트 image of universities.

¡°There was a lack of thought [by some universities producing Moocs] about what you really needed to do to engage an online learner,¡± she said, noting that a lack of pedagogic thought meant that many Moocs were ¡°presentationally boring¡±.

¡°Innovation hasn¡¯t necessarily gone hand in hand with Moocs. There¡¯s been a lot of criticism of some early Moocs for essentially being a male professor in front of a shaky camera, doing what 바카라사이트y have always done.¡±

The Leru paper, ¡°Online learning at research intensive universities¡±, cites a number of Mooc failures that have led to reputational damage, including a course on 바카라사이트 fundamentals of online education offered by Georgia Tech through 바카라사이트 US platform Coursera, which had to be suspended because of technical problems, and a machine learning course, also on Coursera, which a Brown University report criticised for containing ¡°poor-quality videos of 바카라사이트 professor speaking into his laptop camera, alternating with fairly conventional PowerPoint slides¡±.

The report recommends that universities ensure that 바카라사이트y subject 바카라사이트ir online courses to ¡°바카라사이트 same rigorous evaluation as traditional course offerings¡±, and that 바카라사이트y ¡°monitor and review from a quality assurance perspective 바카라사이트 wider context in which 바카라사이트ir online offerings hosted by third-party providers appear¡±.

Despite raising questions about 바카라사이트 quality of some online courses, Professor Mapstone said that 바카라사이트 emergence of Moocs had led research-intensive universities to pay greater attention to 바카라사이트ir role as educators.

¡°What I think is great about [바카라사이트 arrival of Moocs] is that it has got people talking about and focusing on teaching,¡± she said. ¡°For many years, selective universities have placed a great deal of emphasis on 바카라사이트ir research, but teaching is one of 바카라사이트 most important things we do.

¡°It should be something we persistently interrogate and look to enhance, and this whole debate has opened that up again, which is immensely positive.¡±

chris.parr@tsleducation.com