OERu/eduMOOC planning group/MOOC comparison

Defining a MOOC
Characteristics of a MOOC:


 * 1) Course
 * 2) Based on OER
 * 3) Connectivity of social networking
 * 4) Facilitated
 * 5) Large numbers of learners
 * 6) Self organisation
 * 7) No fees
 * 8) No prerequisites
 * 9) Usually no formal accreditation

Course examples
Examples of courses representing the MOOC approach are listed below for comparison and further analysis.

Critical reflections

 * How about adding a course to the table above that represents an actual discipline area from the science, mathematics, business or health domains? Everything listed above amounts to a professional practice meta-course. Making the assumption that MOOCs work beyond professional practice courses for educators would seem to be a basic need for any OERu application of MOOcs. David Porter


 * David, that's a valid point and raises the question of the suitability of the MOOC pedagogy for "disciplines" of study outside of the domain of educational practice. I'm not aware of any large open courses in the sciences or business so we need to remember this shortcoming in our study and analysis. Within the list of case studies we have examples of technical skills development, important for vocational education - but the pedagogy is distinctively different from the "Connectivism" hybrid of MOOC. Related to this question is the nature and level of the credential of the for-credit options running in parallel with the free course (which I have listed as a separate bullet below) --Wayne Mackintosh 23:36, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Just as a note, CCK11 was offered as a for credit option, see the about page on the CCK11 website --Steph 19:47, 11 July 2011 (UTC)
 * For the purposes of analysing the implementation potential of MOOC's for the OERu we must consider the nature and level of the credential. Of the courses listed above there are two post-graduate examples: INST 7150 offered by Utah State Univerisity (3 credit graduate course) and EC&amp;I 831 at the University of Regina (which appears to be a 3 credit graduate course). To the best of my knowledge -- INST7150 was not offered in the open format in subsequent years -- so we need to establish why. However, the EC&amp;I 831 courses have been offered in both formats in subsequent years. The CCK course was a required course (36.5 hours out of 216 hours) in the Certificate in Emerging Technologies for Learning which was offered by the Learning Technologies Centre at the University of Manitoba. Subsequently the Center was closed occasioned by the retirement of Peter Tittenberger and resignation of George Siemens at the Centre. The website for CCK11 does not reference a for-credit option. The courses offered by Otago Polytechic under the Graduate Certificate for Tertiary Teaching which carried a for-credit option are Level 7 (third year bachelor degree level) on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework. --Wayne Mackintosh 23:56, 6 July 2011 (UTC).

Critical review case study teams
Please volunteer to assist with authoring a critical case study review by adding your name to the teams below. Teams of two or three people per case study would be ideal.