Don't We Need a Yelp! for MOOC's? Bring on the MOOCE!
- View
- Comments
- Assessment & Evaluation
- Higher Education
- MOOC
Similar Content
- Want to Learn More About MOOCs? Here's a MOOC on MOOCs.
- Year of the MOOC: Rsp to NY Times, A Student-Made MOOC by Dan Ariely and me
- It's Back: MOOC MOOC
- MOOC Mania: David Theo Goldberg on MOOCs
- If MOOCs are the answer, what is the question?
Everyone knows that retention is one of the major issues faced by MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courseware). One problem is that students don't know what they are getting themselves into until they are in the course. I know several people who sign up for a dozen courses, shop around, and then maybe take one, and maybe finish.
Clearly, if no one has yet come up with the equivalent of the online crowdsourced restaurant review site YELP! for MOOCs, the time has come. We need MOOCE: Massive Online Open Courseware Evaluations. We need "Rate My MOOC Professors." We need some way of having participants, or at least early registrants, not only evaluate the quality of the courses, the instructors, the technology interfaces, the assessment methods, the feedback, the social networking infrastructure, and the final certification process. And we need not just stars but some really clear-headed, mature, helpful feedback that will allow other students to pick and choose the best level, kind, method, and content--and, we hope, also help the companies and universities creating MOOCs to address the shortcomings, build on the strengths.
Anyone out there want to start a MOOCE? Just imagine how easy it would be to create an antlered, dewlapped logo for a MOOCE! Or, if you know of an existing, good, useful system, by all means let us know in the "Comments" section below.
- Cathy Davidson's blog
- Login or register to post comments
About Cathy Davidson
MOOCE - extensions
Why is the calendar so fixed with MOOC's? Why cannot someone take two years to finish the course? Or finish it up in a very intensive few weeks? Given that there are no "admissions requirements," a MOOC offers precisely what colleges - and schools - have never offered before: access to just-in-time-when-I've-got-the-time to invest. And given the adaptability of the internet, why are MOOC courses not just online forever?
Their "academic value" should be dependent on clear outcomes, which could be used to negotiate anything from credits (at whatever institutions are willing to grant it) to placement (with whatever employer, union, or state or other certifying authority able to award it) or...perhaps...badges?
Given such flexibility, why doesn't HASTAC take charge?