 Welcome back, this series of talks on issues related to ODL. We are talking about process issues, technology issues, MOOCs, learning analytics standards and the road map, but in this episode we will talk of MOOCs. MOOC is a kind of ODL, but it is such an important kind of ODL that it requires an episode of its own. First MOOC, if you can use the word MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course was done in Canada by University of Manitoba way back in 2008. Siemens and Downs did a course on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge. There were 25 students in the campus and 2003 and the students from outside anybody could register. So, this is the first online course which allowed a large number of students to participate together and the word the title MOOC, the term MOOC was given by Cormier and Alexander. So, what is the MOOC? A MOOC is a type of online course aimed at large scale participation and open access via the web. There are many ways to define the MOOC, but essentially these are the characteristics. It is accessed over the web, large scale participation, there is open access, we will talk of what open means in a while and of course we are talking of a course which is online. So, open, what does open mean? Open means anybody can register, typically we do not check for prerequisites. So, there are large number of students who are going to register, it is not possible to check for prerequisites either. We say look if you want to follow the content, you need to have this kind of background, you flag that, but you are not going to verify that the student has that kind of background. Whereas in a course which is run in a university, we actually check that the student has done that particular course and has got a pass grade in that and so on. It is often free, this is an interesting point. When we say open, we also mean if any knowledge that is generated of the course is open to all, very often you may have a nice proof that is you have done and then or a nice explanation or a nice answer to a question and we keep it for public consumption. So, open has multiple connotations. So, in a MOOC we also connect and collaborate, there is a large number of large amount of social interaction that happens. People ask questions and others students answer, not necessarily the instructor very often before the instructor can answer another student will answer. So, there is huge social interaction that happens and that also produces content. Finally, MOOC is an event. So, it starts certain amount of time and then it is over after certain time. So, MOOC is an online course where anybody can register and learn certain things and collaborate and talk and have fun, but it is also an event. It is like as a begin and an end and they say it is not about learning, it is a business model. We will see this in a while. So, not all MOOCs are same. There are large number of online courses and apparently there are two kinds of MOOCs. These are the classification that are given. One kind is called C MOOC and other is called X MOOC. You will see X MOOCs first because they are easy to understand. So, X MOOCs resemble traditional courses that we already know. So, what happens in these courses is you have a set of lectures which are recorded and put on the web and the student follows that. The course, the lecture may have some quizzes intertwined in between. These may be specially recorded for delivery over the web or may be recordings that are done in a regular classroom setting and put on the web. Nevertheless, these are lectures. So, this is basically transforming classroom based lecture course on to the web and adapting whatever practices that we have there for delivery over the web. That is called an X MOOC. A C MOOC is slightly different. A C MOOC emphasizes what is called connectives philosophy. It is a metaphor for learning. So, what is connectivism? Basically it says knowledge is distributed in a network. We call them nodes and people learn by participating by connecting to these nodes and they form new connections when they actually encounter these. The participation can be of various kinds and knowledge gets created when they form new links that exist between nodes. So, this is a model of learning and students actually bring in their own knowledge in terms of resources that they may have like blogs or documents that they have created and so on their own spaces if they can use that word and they make connections. So, there is huge amount of discussion that goes on and the learning process is a participatory process not listening to a lecture given by an instructor which you listen to and take an exam to figure out whether you have learnt or not. So, this is the connectivist philosophy of learning and you can create a platform which delivers learning of this kind. In fact, the first MOOC was supposed to be of this kind. So, it is much emphasis on creation of links of connections between knowledge fragments, participation and so on. So, such a kind of online course which is open and so on is called a C MOOC. So, we have X MOOCs which are like traditional courses put online and we have C MOOCs where the emphasis is on not just listening to a lecture, but actually learning bringing your own resources learning through making connections between participating discussions and so on. So, there are two kinds of MOOCs. You can also classify the online courses or MOOCs in another parameters. So, sometimes you have online courses versus hybrid courses. When we say hybrid what we mean is there is a component where there is a face to face interaction. The flipped classroom kind that we talked about is a hybrid kind of module. You can have a module where the assessment is face to face. It is not online. So, you can distinguish based on whether there is a contact component or not. Some of them are self-paced courses. The content is put online. You can go at your own pace. After you finish the first lesson you can move on to the second and so on. Or there may be a schedule associated with the course. The instructor is going to release a certain module at a particular point of time and then you follow that participate in a quiz or an assessment or not and then move on to the second module. There is a schedule associated. So, that is another kind of distinction you will see amongst online courses. You can have scenarios where you can individual you can run the course individually where you pace yourself or a large number of students participate together and then there is participation on through hangouts and various other collaborative events. There may be an instructor in some courses who is going to guide you will participate and connect with an individual and help you navigate the content or it may be completely machine guided. So, again there is a distinction between courses online. Of course, when there is an instructor engaged course is going to be expensive because a huge amount of time is needed for the instructor to manage. So, this is again different kinds of MOOCs that you will encounter. So, it is also the word is interactive learning online is also used to describe MOOCs. What do they do? Whatever the kind of MOOC you may have it improves faculty productivity. It reduces instructional cost and without reducing quality. Now, this is very critical. In fact, this is the reason where why there is so much excitement about this. We are able to deliver quality education to a large number of students without excluding anybody at a very low cost. So, who are the kind of people who take this MOOCs? If you look at what has happened before many of them are people who are doing jobs. So, this is an essential component of the continuing education program of a person. Large number of international students you will encounter in a MOOC. People from all over the world typically from places who do not have access to quality content otherwise. Surprisingly, you will also notice that retired people are taking this course. So, it is a very heartening feature that means the humanity is still interested in learning. Let us take a small case study. This is a MOOC run by Jennifer Widome, a well known database researcher and teacher from Stanford. In fact, there is an interesting history how the concept evolved. So, what they started doing was recording lectures so that students can watch later. Then the realized classrooms have become half empty. They said why should I go to the classroom? I can actually listen to the talk later. Then the teachers thought about it and realized they have actually more to give to the student than just the lecture. Now, there is an opportunity because the classroom contact can be used for that extracting that they have. So, they came up with this concept of the flipped classroom if they can use that word. So, where the lectures are kept somewhere else and you listen to the lecture, then come to the classroom and the classroom time is used for interaction, problem solving, discussions and special lectures by invitees. Then the next step is if I am going to record lecture, why cannot I do a purpose built recording so that it is not just the classroom that is registered, set of students who are registered for this course will benefit, but anybody else. So, you have to carefully design those lectures like we have seen in another episode in the course design. You have to design the course. You have to design it as a learning object. So, you purpose built videos and then you can have in between the lecture you can have quizzes and small questions multiple choice questions. So, that you can pace the student properly. So, this is the natural consequence of having started recording the lectures. So, this is how the transferred database course evolved and then finally, once they had this purpose built videos they said let us release it online and they got 60,000 students who have registered for the course. Apparently, 6500 completed the course. They had video lectures with in video quizzes and they had some exercises which are self guided. Now, the quizzes which are basically generated from different combination of correct and incorrect answers. So, every time you take a quiz the question may be the same, but the set of answers that you need to choose from are different. So, you repeat the quiz because you have not done well in the first time or you want to improve your scores. Then you do not get the same set of questions and then they had a mid term and a final exam and Jennifer Widome says that you have to be careful about how you paraphrase the question in such a way that the student does not get the answer from Wikipedia by searching the topic once a week chat. This is an example of a MOOC that has been very successful the content is still online. Now it has moved to Coursera and you can watch it and many faculty in for teaching database courses now are actually using this set of lectures and running their own courses in the flipped classroom because the content is already delivered by an expert MOOCs business models about MOOCs. So, how do MOOCs make money? Do they make money? So, one way to for the MOOCs to sustain themselves is to charge for certification. You offer the course you can do the course, but if you want a certificate you will have to pay for it you will have to you will charge you fifty dollars for the certificate that is one way you can charge a tuition fee upfront you want to do this course it will cost you hundred dollars that is another way that is a business we are talking of business models. Another interesting way MOOCs seem to talk of making money is they offer placement services you have done my course. So, I know how good or bad you are how good you are not bad and like campus placements we can have a company coming to me and says look I want a guy in databases I can say look talk to this person he has done very well in my course and if you get the job you give me part of your salary to me. So, by finding you a job I am going to earn some revenue. So, that is another business model a student has done a course then the whole interaction that the student has had with the course becomes his portfolio. He might have produced an elegant proof for one of the questions and can claim that to be a point of value for his own in his own CV. So, what the platform can do what the company which ran this course can do is to actually collect your interactions and then construct what is called an e portfolio and that e portfolio is for sale. So, like I get a recommendation letter from my instructor because I have topped the class or I have done well in his course whatever. So, because my performance is my portfolio in that course is in that instructor's mind, but actually if the course is done online it can be in electronic form and made easily accessible. So, these resumes can be bought by the participating student and that is how the platform can make money. You can provide networking opportunities this is a well known model like LinkedIn and so on. So, if I want to connect with some members of the community I pay a small fee. So, let me quickly add that this business model is still evolving right now all the MOOCs are running based on venture capital or sponsored by some philanthropist. So, we will see in the next year or two some stable models which are sustainable right now they are still exploring. Interesting aspects about MOOCs. So, if you take this company called Udacity what they do is they combine an online delivery mechanism with face to face exam. They join with this company called Pearson view which has centers in large number of countries 165 countries over the world and you can go there and take an exam physically sit down and take the exam. So, identity issues and cheating issues are handled. So, because we can we can make sure that the exam is conducted properly we can actually give you a certificate which has greater authority. So, that is kind of another model that has come it is not this is an example of not purely online, but online plus some physical contact. One thing to remember this is another interesting point the design and preparation cost of a MOOC is quite high, but delivery is almost free not free platform cost should not underestimate the cost of the platform, but it is very very small. But trying to design the course and record the content is actually expensive. If you want to record an hour of video maybe you will have to do 10 to 20 hours of work or more. Of course, you do not have hour long videos you will have smaller 5 to 10 minute videos. The other aspect of online course or a MOOC is much discussed topic is it for learning complex terms. How does it how does it measure up with traditional way of learning? So, we will talk of it again in a later slide, but probably MOOCs are to deliver certain kind of content whereas, huge amount of information that is to be conveyed they are very effective. So, some of the well known MOOC players if I can use the term Kursera which is a spin off from Stanford and Udemy which will allow you to make your own course and create a teacher anywhere in the world can create a course. Udacity is another university spin off which is actually makes courses tailor made for a web and then MIT edX is a nonprofit which is trying to on take to online education in a big way. Will MOOCs succeed? There are two way two questions to this will MOOCs succeed in a business sense business models are evolving. Will MOOCs succeed in a pedagogical sense in the sense will succeed in making the student learn that is still not very clear, but if you look at cognitive processes in learning I am from the computer science department I know a little about cognitive processes involved in learning programming for example. So, if you look at the literature what they flag as the two top cognitive processes in learning programming are motivation and regulation should be motivated and you have to sit down and work. So, if these two are the top CPs then MOOCs can succeed at least in learning programming. Now, MOOCs actually occur in many of tasks if I can say you have MOOCs which are massive open online courses you can also have large open online courses you can have small you can have tiny open online courses as well. So, what are the components of a MOOC platform? So, you could have you need a open educational resource you need a content delivery platform you have a you need an evaluation component you need things like discussion forums and wikis where people collaborate and often you bring your own space when I participate in a MOOC and I want to submit an assignment I might say my assignment is here in my blog and submit the link it need not be an assignment it may be sometimes MOOCs may not permit assignments to be submitted in this fashion because they may find it difficult to aggregate they may say no you please submit a PDF file upload a PDF file or type it in this, but in a collaborative platform and we are discussing for example you can bring your own space and say look my perspective is here that is all about MOOCs thank you.