Is MOOC-Mania over?

Bebo White
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University
2575 Sand Hill Road, MailStop 88, Menlo Park CA 94117 USA
bebo@slac.stanford.edu

Abstract. The New York Times famously branded 2012 The Year of the
MOOC given the upsurge of interest in so-called Massive Online Open
Courses. MOOCs were seen as the future of distance education and the
realization of a dream to democratize education. Anyone with online access
could become a student and participate freely in courses offered by the
worlds most knowledgeable professors at the most elite universities. Class
sizes were unprecedented it was not unusual to have tens of thousands or
hundreds of thousands of participants in some very popular courses. The Times
declaration followed the launch of edX, by Harvard University and MIT, and
the rapid growth of MOOC platforms and providers such as Coursera and
Udacity. The Sand Hill Road venture capitalists invested substantial funds in
these providers even though a monetization model was not obvious. It is now
almost two years since The Year of the MOOC and we must ask ourselves
whether the enthusiasm over the MOOC model was/is still warranted. Have
MOOCs been successful in changing the direction of online education? What
problems, issues, and challenges have MOOC adopters encountered?
Keywords: MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, Coursera, Udacity, edX,
flipped classrooms.

Introduction

The Gartner Hype Cycle is a popular and often-used tool developed by the Gartner
IT research and advisory firm. [1] It seeks to track the maturity, adoption, and
application of new technologies (often seen as disruptive) with respect to time. It
reflects the hype often seen with new technologies (or applications) and what
happens with that hype over the passage of time. In the end it hopefully indicates
the important phases of a technologys life cycle. Gartner identifies five key phases
in the evolution of a technologys life cycle or period of relevance (from
Wikipedia) [2]:
Technology Trigger
A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories
and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and
commercial viability is unproven.
S.K.S. Cheung et al. (Eds.): ICHL 2014, LNCS 8595, pp. 1115, 2014.
Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014

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Peak of Inflated Expectations

Early publicity produces a number of success storiesoften accompanied by scores
of failures. Some companies take action; many do not.
Trough of Disillusionment
Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the
technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers
improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.
Slope of Enlightenment
More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize
and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear
from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies
remain cautious.
Plateau of Productivity
Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are
more clearly defined. The technologys broad market applicability and relevance are
clearly paying off.
When graphically expressed as visibility (i.e., hype) with respect to time, the
cycle is represented as in Figure 1.

Fig. 1. The Gartner Hype Cycle

Assuming that it would be appropriate to apply the MOOC phenomenon to the

Gartner Hype Cycle, the relevant questions would be:

Is MOOC-Mania over?

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What is the applicable time scale?

Which phase in the cycle best describes the present influence and adoption of
MOOC technology?

Discussion

The Technology Trigger in the evolution of MOOCs as a technological entity most

likely came from the realization that connectivist teaching and learning could fit well on
the currently defined technical and social infrastructure of the Internet/Web. It is typically
acknowledged that the first MOOC was, in fact, a course and a network about the
emergent practices and the theory of Connectivism taught by Stephen Downes and
George Siemens through the University of Manitoba, Canada in 2008. [3] The course
was not only about Connectivism but provided a demonstration of its practice through
Web 2.0 concepts such as blogs and chat facilities, multimedia, and social networking.
The evolution and the growth of the MOOC concept from the Downes/Siemens
course to the Year of the MOOC are well documented. In recent years it has been
difficult to find an educational journal or conference that does not include some reference
to MOOCs and the issues surrounding their adoption. Statistics abound regarding the
number of MOOCs currently available, the size of enrollments, and completion rates.
There are strong indications that MOOCs may now be on the leading edge of the
Trough of Disillusionment. This proposition comes from the four groups that would
be the primary stakeholders in MOOC success or failure: the institutions, the faculty,
the students, and the investors.
Institutions are clearly questioning the wisdom of putting their curriculum (the
intellectual capital that lies in their faculty) online for free. Some institutions have
made a substantial investment into the development and support of MOOCs. For
example, at Stanford University the faculty demand to create MOOCs has resulted in
a backlog of three to four months in the audio-visual department. While massive
participation in a Stanford MOOC could be perceived as a matter of prestige for the
university (amongst the elite institutions), it is not unreasonable to ask what is their
Return on Investment (ROI)? It would be hard to prove that MOOCs provide Stanford
with a viable mechanism for recruiting top students. Similarly, it is unlikely that at
any time in the future Stanford will allow MOOC completion to be applied towards a
Stanford degree. Interestingly, Stanford is using edX as its principal MOOC platform
rather than Coursera or Udacity (both of whom were developed by Stanford faculty).
[4] It is possible that Stanford is finding secondary value in the collaboration with the
other institutions that are members of the edX Consortium.
Faculty acceptance of MOOCs has been mixed. Motivated faculty members have
found the new methods of teaching required by the development of a MOOC to be
challenging. Lessons learned from teaching MOOCs and the diversity of students and
student involvement can potentially result in new methods applicable to traditional,
classroom, face-to-face teaching. Other faculty may be motivated by the large enrollment
numbers and the opportunity to be recognized internationally as an outstanding subject
matter expert. Some faculty have also felt threatened by the concept of flipped
classrooms and how adoption of such a course style might diminish their faculty role in
the higher education of the future. Faculty should be worried about the lack of robust
student assessment mechanisms currently found in MOOCs.

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As perhaps should be said for any teaching and learning environment, students
stand to be the big winners with MOOCs. For motivated students, participation in
MOOCs addresses the rising costs of higher education or even the need for a
university degree. MOOCs can potentially satisfy one of the longtime goals of
distance education and the digital divide by providing access to high-quality
educational content to anyone anywhere in the world for little or no cost. Enrollment
statistics in existing MOOCs have expanded the definition of students. MOOC
learning communities often contain university students, lifelong learners (e.g.,
retirees), learning on demand participants, and others. Socialization between such a
diversity of active students has proven to appreciably enhance the learning and
teaching experience. Student disillusionment in MOOCs may be reflected in the low
completion rates and the realization that many students require a more structured
educational environment. To many students MOOC content has simply become
another online commodity to be compared and evaluated with other options.
It is safe to say that the hype and inflated expectation surrounding MOOCs
created a new cottage industry that some investors were eager to be a part of. The
two best-known MOOC platforms, Coursera and Udacity, were both developed by
faculty members who had developed successful (judging from enrollment numbers)
courses. Well-known venture capitalist firms were eager to financially support their
efforts in the hope that a monetization model for MOOCs could be identified. [5]
Development of such a model has been slow in coming. It is generally agreed that
course content should remain free to students, but additional services and
functionality may be provided at a charge. Coursera offers students completion
certificates that are potentially recognized by major employers. [6] Also offered are
recruitment contacts and job placement services allowing employers access to the
names of high-performing MOOC students. Costs of such services may be shared
between students and employers/recruiters. On Udacity non-paying students [7] have
access to course videos and exercises and can view and manage their progress, but a
paid subscription gives them access to in-class projects, feedback from instructors and
a verified certificate. As such, MOOC platform providers are leveraging the expert
content from universities and following in the footsteps of the longtime commercial
online educational providers (e.g., The University of Phoenix).
In addition to providing expert content, colleges and universities are themselves
exploring ways to monetize the MOOC model. For example, in March 2014,
Harvard Business School announced its HBX program. [8] HBX requires that
students apply for admission and must already be pursuing at least a four-year degree
at another institution. HBX is not free with tuition for its first term priced at $1,500.
Instruction and assessment will be done as with other MOOCs and students
successfully graduating will receive a Credential of Readiness verified by Harvard
Business School. This modified MOOC model assumes that registration costs will
offset the usual MOOC dropout rate and that students will be highly motivated by the
prospect of receiving Harvard certification.

Conclusion

Yes MOOC-Mania has likely come to an end (i.e., it has reached the Peak of
Inflated Expectations). But rather than disillusionment (as suggested by the next phase

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of the Gartner Hype Cycle), stake-holders in the MOOC model (institutions, faculty,
students, and investors) should take the opportunity to reflect on the pedagogies that can
possibly be implemented via MOOCs and how they might influence future higher
education both online and in the classroom. Despite the fact that to some educators
MOOCs appear to be a fad or a threat, the questions that have arisen surrounding them
should not be ignored. Educational researchers should continue to explore new MOOC
models and paradigms (e.g., xMOOCs, cMOOCs, etc.).
A Slope of Enlightenment may come when it is realized that MOOCs are global
events, not regional ones in the way that traditional university courses tend to be. That
is, MOOCs provide the capability to transcend the specific concerns of the
stakeholders. MOOCs may be one of the only ways to satisfy George Siemens vision
learning is a social trust-based process, and limitations of language and shared
context may circumscribe peoples capacity to engage with others to the full potential
of the [Connectivist] model.[9] Technology ownership and bandwidth certainly
present barriers at this time, but they are simply technical problems that are likely to
be solved in the future if there is sufficient motivation. If it is accurate to assume that
the time scale on the Gartner Hype Cycle is approximately linear, then this
enlightenment period should be realized within the next four to five years.

References
1. Wikipedia: Hype Cycle,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner%27s_Hype_Cycle
2. Wikipedia: Gartner, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner
3. Connectivism and Connective Knowledge: The Daily (September 15, 2008),
http://connect.downes.ca/archive/08/09_15_thedaily.htm
4. Stanford University: Homepage of Stanford Online,
http://online.stanford.edu/openedx
5. Hepler, L.: Coursera lands $20 million in new funding despite online education turmoil.
Silicon Valley Business Journal (November 22, 2013),
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/11/22/
coursera-lands-20-million-in-new.html?page=all
6. Coursera Student Support: What is a Verified Certificate? How can I use It?,
http://help.coursera.org/customer/portal/articles/
1167998-what-is-a-verified-certificate-how-can-i-use-it
7. Kolowich, S.: Udacity Will No Longer Offer Free Certificates. The Chronicle of Higher
Education (May 14, 2014),
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/
udacity-will-no-longer-offer-free-certificates/51757
8. Borchers, C.: Harvard Business enters online education fray. Boston Globe (March 21, 2014),
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/03/20/
harvard-business-school-launches-online-educationprogram/L2x3xMuBgjR12TLlh01XYO/story.html
9. McAuley, A., Stewart, B., Siemens, G., Cormier, D.: The MOOC model for digital practice,
https://www.academia.edu/2857149/
The_MOOC_model_for_digital_practice