There’s really four elements companies like Coursera have brought to the table. Massive Classes: This was the original “intellectual” pitch. Massive data was going to build better product. Massive classes were going to provide new ways of formative assessment via peer assessment, and new modes of support via massive forums. The idea here is a Continue reading

Given the recent Coursera news, in which Coursera has essentially become a supplier of courseware to higher education, I made a snarky comment on twitter that I was surprised that so few people had seen this coming. Martin Weller quite politely replied that he hadn’t seen it coming, at least not clearly, and could I Continue reading

Expenditure per student at American private research universities grew 23% in the past decade, controlled for inflation. Since the cumulative inflation rate for that period is also in the mid-20s, you can roughly say that expenditure per FTE student rose at twice the rate of inflation (that ignores compounding, but whatever: we’re being lazy here). Continue reading

Cole put up a post recently asking why the open education movement had become so reactive: Just a couple of years ago we were all trying so hard to get people to accept the idea that open access to learning was a great thing. Hell, some of the best conversations I’ve ever had in this Continue reading

Fascinating report out on recent enrollment trends from creepily-named National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Could be the subject of twenty different posts, so much in it is riveting. This is my takeaway, though, because it is so dramatic: Yes, we’re at Peak Demo, but removing the for-profits from the equation (imploding for different reasons) the Continue reading

Finally read this detailed rumination by Stephen Downes on the question of MOOCs and quality — what would it mean to call a traditional cMOOC “good” as opposed to “bad”, especially in an environment where individual purpose for engaging in the MOOC is going to vary. Contains an important distinction that I’m still thinking about Continue reading

While the SJSU situation keeps on boiling, it’s worth pulling back the camera a bit and seeing the larger scene. This comes out of the history section of a run-of-the-mill press release Pearson released today: California’s state university system, the nation’s largest four-year university system, partnered with Pearson in 2012 to launch Cal State Online, a Continue reading

Found this interesting: No less important, Americans spend a far higher proportion of their national wealth on higher education than the British. According to the OECD, the UK spends 1.3 per cent of GDP on tertiary education, precisely the EU average. The US, on the other hand, spends 3.1 per cent, far more than any Continue reading

The damage that Coursera, EdX, Udacity and others have done to a decade of open education progress becomes more apparent by the day. In today’s installment, the kettle at SJSU comes to a full boil, with the faculty association there joining the Philosophy department in expressing opposition, not to open education, but to the badly Continue reading

Stephen Downes had mentioned in a post a while back that the “distributed flip, advanced as this Great New Thing, is the connectivist model of MOOCs, but with small-group in-person attached..” The shift to the term was portrayed as part of (as the title indicates) the “Great Rebranding”, a move to assimilate MOOCs into an Continue reading