 Hello. Massive open online courses or so-called MOOCs are considered a revolution in teaching and learning. I don't think they are. For us, on the Virtue Linguistics Campus at least, they are just online courses with no credits. There is nothing mysterious about MOOCs. But let me explain this in detail. The general idea behind MOOCs is to make educational content available to everyone, anywhere, at any time. In fact, this can be done in two ways. On the one hand, we have the so-called X MOOCs, where the pre-posed character X stands for a mark, assigned to classes at Harvard University that were not only offered on campus, but also alternatively online. Thus, the X MOOC is the online equivalent of a classical on-campus seminar or a lecture. C MOOCs, by contrast, are MOOCs where the participants are connected and are invited to discuss or to expand the material and the input provided to them in the context of a predefined topic. By the way, the character C stands for connectionism. So the participants are connected somehow. To generalize, one could say that the focus of X MOOCs is on content acquisition by the participants, whereas in C MOOCs, aggregation, commenting, and discussion are in the center of interest. For this reason, X MOOCs are more frequently used for content delivery in the natural sciences, whereas C MOOCs are used to support education in the arts and social sciences. Well, and since linguistics, our discipline shares many features with the natural sciences. X MOOCs rather than C MOOCs stand in the center of our interest. But how should an X MOOC be structured? Well, for the structure of an X MOOC, three components are required. The backbone of an X MOOC is its content. In most cases, the content is based on videos produced by the class instructors, either live in class or as separate e-lectures. For the participants to solve problems or to enter into peer-to-peer discussions, an X MOOC also needs a forum. Remember, there is no class instructor around, thus the participants have to solve many things among themselves. And they do. The third component is an assessment system where several electronic tests are made available which track the participants' mastery. And then, of course, you need some sort of infrastructure, namely a platform. Here are some platforms that have already offered MOOCs, mainly American developments. For example, we have edX, the common open platform of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University. There are Coursera and Udacity, two platforms initiated as private enterprises. Or take VentureLab, the Stanford University MOOC platform. Well, and in addition to this, there is the Virtual Linguistics Compos, the world's only MOOC platform for linguistics, language technology and languages. And as you can imagine, we are very proud to be on this list. But why do we need a platform in the first place? Well, the answer is quite simple. Since users have to register for a MOOC, here is the registration option on the Virtual Linguistics Compos, the platform has to store the participants' data. And in the case of an assessment component, the platform has to store the participants' progress. And last but not least, via the platform, the automatic distribution of the final certificates has to be administered. Let's now look at the structure of our ex MOOCs on the Virtual Linguistics Compos. As I already said, on the VLC, MOOCs are not mysterious at all. Our classes are used in accordance with our inverted classroom mastery model, where each unit involves a combination of multimedia, video and print information, something which is unparalleled in the world of e-education. Here you see the structure of an e-learning unit in the context of the inverted classroom mastery model. Phase one, content acquisition, then formative assessment, and phase two, an in-class meeting. So within the inverted classroom mastery model, formative e-assessments constitute the basis for the organization of our in-class meeting. To generate appropriate MOOC units, all we have to do is to replace the in-class phase by a system of additional components, and the formative assessment, one for each unit, now becomes summative. In other words, a VLC massive open online course unit is an ICMM, an inverted classroom mastery model unit minus in-class meeting, where the formative assessment becomes summative, and the in-class phase is replaced by a set of electronic exercises with model solutions and peer-to-peer communication tools. Well, and these additional components are, for example, exercises. Exercises or practical questions with model solutions that can be accessed in a predefined rhythm and then involve solutions from textual explanations to so-called micro-teaching videos, and furthermore we need a forum where the class participants can discuss their problems or where they simply express their requests. If you wish, the forum is the C, the connectionism component of a VLC MOOC, which thus combines the features of an X MOOC with those of a C MOOC. Well, and what are our advantages? Why do we offer MOOCs on the virtual linguistics campus? Well, on the one hand, we can simply increase our popularity. Those who deny this motivational factor are not sincere. Where can you increase your reputation more than on the World Wide Web? And so we have increased the popularity of the virtual linguistics campus enormously, and also the University of Marburg is now on the international MOOC map. Not bad. Secondly, our video channel, and you need a video channel in order to support your MOOCs with video, our video channel that is combined with our multimedia e-learning units has made us more popular than ever before. Well, and last but not least, we have now the highest degree of quality assurance that is possible, not just a handful of students as participants of our seminars until recently, but the whole Internet community from all over the world. But there are drawbacks. The development of the platform and even more so the development of a MOOC involves financial investment. I don't want to talk about the developmental costs of our VLC MOOCs here, but it is obvious that quality assured educational content is expensive. So since tuition fees, as in standard university courses, are no option, MOOC developers have been thinking about revenue. The following revenue options have already become reality on the virtual linguistics campus. Advertisement. A relatively simple method for revenue on the virtual linguistics campus, we have partners that support us wherever possible. That's why we present them on our MOOCs class start sites and in our videos. Secondly, we can offer our products. If students are on our VLC MOOCs, they are offered numerous additional educational products, for example, our global access to our virtual sessions, thus to the whole world of multimedia linguistics or to our workbooks, or ideally they become part of our online MA degree program web development for linguistics. Well, and what about MOOCs for credit fees for credit? Well, many providers are thinking about this option, but they seem to ignore the following. To issue credit points for a course involves the following prerequisites at least in Germany, first, students must be officially enrolled at the provider university. This presupposes an educational level that satisfies the university's admission standards and necessitates the delivery of the respective documents prior to class start, for example, high school transcripts, and this is impossible for a massive open online course. The second condition is that the MOOC must be part of an official degree program. That is, it must be accredited. But these two options, official enrollment and part of an official degree program, these three conditions run totally run counter to the idea of the MOOC, three online classes for everyone. So this option is clearly out. What remains is the possibility of charging a small fee for accomplishment. To understand how this can be managed, let us look at the certification options for a MOOC. Theoretically, you have four options which I called level zero, level one, level two, level three over here. Now, level zero is simply nothing, no participation, enrollment in a MOOC, but no participation. Level one is a statement of participation. So if students actively participate, but their testing score is below 60%, they will receive a free statement of participation. Level two is the interesting one, a statement of accomplishment. I will say something about it in a second. And level three, full credits, well, we already said this option doesn't work. So whereas the standard certificate, level one, the so-called statement of participation is free, the statement of accomplishment not only involves more work but also a very small amount of money. And if this option is chosen in VLC MOOCs, participants will receive a qualified statement of accomplishment issued by Marburg University in conjunction with the Virtual Linguistics Campus. This certificate will include the precise grade. Well, you see them over here, the grades. It'll include the workload, down here, the workload in hours. And it'll include a list of topics covered in the class, which is identical with the list of worksheets that the student must have submitted in order to reach 60% or more. So in order to be given such a certificate, participants are required to participate regularly and to do the worksheets, one for each e-learning unit. And by submitting these worksheets, they have to reach an average score of 60% or more. Well, at the small fee, something well below 50 euros, gives us developers a small revenue option and the option to reinvest this money in content production. So, I hope to have shown that there is nothing mysterious about MOOCs and that the hype has only been created by those who are over excited by the fact that they now have video as an option for content delivery. We on the Virtual Linguistics Campus have had multimedia for more than 10 years and for us, video is just an additional option. And so, massive open online courses with their components, multimedia, video and e-assessment are nothing else but mere online courses. And they have been around for some time. The only thing they're now available for a wider target group. So, if you're interested in free linguistics online classes, become a member of the VLC community. Select your MOOC and, well, you can even select several at the same time and then join us. So, see you on the Virtual Linguistics Campus. Thank you very much.