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Massive Open Online Courses
DOI 10.1007/s12599-014-0313-9
The Authors
Dr. Jochen Wulf (�)Dr. Ivo BlohmProf. Dr. Walter BrennerIWI-HSGUniversität St. GallenMüller-Friedberg-Strasse 89000 St. [email protected]@[email protected]
Prof. Dr. Jan Marco LeimeisterChair for Information SystemsUniversity of KasselNora-Platiel-Straße 434127 [email protected] for InformationManagementUniversity of St. GallenMüller-Friedberg-Strasse 89000 St. GallenSwitzerland
Received: 2013-07-26Accepted: 2013-12-03Accepted after one revision byProf. Dr. Sinz.
This article is also available in Ger-man in print and via http://www.wirtschaftsinformatik.de: Jochen J,Blohm I, Leimeister JM, Brenner W(2014) Massive Open Online Courses.WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK. doi:10.1007/s11576-014-0405-7.
© Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden2014
1 Massive Open OnlineCourses—The Democratizationof Education?
The Georgia Institute of Technology(Georgia Tech) is one of the world’s lead-ing universities in computer science edu-cation. Starting from 2014’s winter term,Georgia Tech is providing a Master’s pro-gram in Computer Science. Individualcourses are offered exclusively as “massiveopen online courses” (MOOCs).1 The tu-ition fees will cover only a fraction ofthe traditional Master’s program in or-der to enhance accessibility. To realizethis project, Georgia Tech is cooperat-ing with AT&T and the private educa-tional organization Udacity.2 AT&T sup-ports the program with 2 million USD.The telecommunication company usesthe program for educating its own mem-bers of staff as well as for recruiting highlyskilled graduates. With MOOCs for up to300,000 participants, Udacity has gainedglobal media attraction. Top Germanuniversities, e.g., Freiburg, Munich, andBerlin, have already started to acceptsome Udacity-MOOCs in their regularcurricula.3 As a consequence, MOOCsare increasingly challenging traditionalteaching methods and institutions (Vardi2012).
What are MOOCs? MOOCs are web-based online courses for an unlimitednumber of participants held by profes-sors or other experts. The following con-stitutive characteristics can be identified(Clow 2013; McAuley et al. 2010; Vardi2012):• Large number of participants (“mas-
sive”): In contrast to traditional dis-tance learning courses, MOOCs ad-dress an unlimited number of partic-ipants.
• Open accessibility (“open”): There areno, or very few, formal conditionsfor participation. The courses addressa global target group. Specific pre-vious knowledge is only required ifthe course is embedded in a degreeprogram. Moreover, MOOCs are of-ten free of charge or impose only lowparticipation fees.
• Digitization (“online”): Courses areexclusively conducted via the Internetand thus are not location-dependent.Digitization comprises the learningmaterial, the teaching process, socialinteraction of participants as well astheir examination.
• Didactical concept (“course”): Thelearning content is structured accord-ing to a didactical concept. The teach-ing process and the development ofknowledge follows pre-defined learn-ing objectives. Elements of designmay include course scheduling, a pre-structuring of the learning content, thecontrol of social learning interaction,as well as the execution of reviews ofeducational objectives and tests.From an information systems research
perspective, MOOCs represent an inno-vative, web-based business model for fi-nancing, designing, and provisioning ed-ucational services. Due to the increas-ing digitization and respective structur-ing of these services, the laws of the In-ternet economy (cf. Shapiro and Var-ian 1999; marginal costs of additionalparticipants tend towards zero, occur-rence of network and long-tail effects)open up higher education and vocationaltraining to the masses. Thus, MOOCsoffer great potential (e.g., increased ef-fectiveness and efficiency in education;Leimeister 2012, pp. 46–102) and chal-lenges (e.g., new competitors) for aca-demic institutions and other providers ofeducational services.
2 Previous Research on MOOCs
The current academic discussion onMOOCs focuses on the different typesof MOOCs, the involved didactic con-cepts, as well as the technology andmechanisms that facilitate the scaling ofeducational services.
Clow (2013) distinguishes two funda-mental types: cMOOCs and xMOOCs.The connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) arebased on the pedagogical principles of
1http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/.2https://www.udacity.com.3http://blogs.faz.net/netzwirtschaft-blog/2013/06/07/online-akadamie-udacity-uni-abschlusse-werden-verschwinden-3495/.
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Table 1 Mechanisms and technologies for the digitization and scaling of courses
Peer support In order to support social learning interaction, peer support mechanisms are institutionalized, thus enablingparticipants to help each other with questions and problems. For instance, forums may be utilized (Clow 2013) inwhich active participation in discussions is frequently required as an essential component of courses. There are manyfurther possibilities for IT utilization in order to facilitate collaborative learning (Haake et al. 2012).
Peer grading In the context of MOOCs, examinations and tests are often evaluated by fellow students (peer grading). Generally,there are only slight deviations from the assessments of professional teaching staff (Sadlar and Good 2006). Moreover,peer grading procedures are used for the calibration of diverse student assessments (Robinson 2001).
Gamification In order to create incentives to participate in forum discussions and in peer support in general, gamificationmechanisms such as badges, missions, and quests are integrated. Gamification entails the implementation ofgame-design elements in products, services, and information systems in order to increase their usage andeffectiveness (Blohm and Leimeister 2013). Also, badges are used as an alternative to the traditional certificates inorder to confirm the acquired competence within a MOOC.a
Learning analytics Due to the total digitization of the teaching process, the effectiveness of the applied teaching methods can bemeasured. Learning content may accordingly be adapted to the individual proficiency level of participants(Cooper and Sahami 2013; Sadlar and Good 2006).
Identity control andmonitoring
IT systems can support examination, e.g., in carrying out identity verification and digital monitoring.
Digital administrationof user rights
Parallel to the course, participants may be granted access to electronic textbooks. To this end, information technologymay support the provision of e-book licenses and the accompanying administration of user rights.
ahttp://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmarshallcrotty/2013/02/25/new-improved-badges-give-credential-meat-to-mooc-revolution/
connectivism. They may be compared toseminars in which participants evaluateand structure new contents, create texts,and write comments that are then madeavailable to other participants. Connec-tivism considers intensive interaction be-tween participants as the essential sourceof the creation of knowledge (Kop andHill 2008).
xMOOCs have evolved from the digiti-zation of traditional lecture formats anduse behavioristic teaching approaches(Clow 2013). Generally, xMOOCs consistof short video sequences for the media-tion of learning contents, and direct tests(Vardi 2012). Due to the high numberof participants, individual, direct interac-tion with teaching staff is hardly possi-ble. Therefore, xMOOCs make use of dif-ferent technologies to ensure scalability,such as an automated evaluation of mul-tiple choice questions, validation proce-dures for examining the correctness ofsoftware code as known in software de-velopment (Cooper and Sahami 2013), orprocedures for an automated plagiarismdetection. Table 1 summarizes essentialdidactic mechanisms and technologiesthat are applied within MOOCs.
Due to the large number of partic-ipants and the systematic applicationof such mechanisms and technologies,MOOCs have to be distinguished fromblended learning approaches where e-learning and class-based lectures are
Fig. 1 MOOC business models
combined. Compared to what more tra-ditional, web-based distance learning of-fers, MOOCs do not attempt individualinteraction with teachers. Furthermore,MOOCs differ from other web-basedformats of knowledge transfer, such aswebinars, which often lack comparableinteractivity and didactic underpinnings.
3 Business Models for theConduct of MOOCs
MOOCs represent a class of businessmodel innovations for educational ser-
vices that are increasingly realized withindigital value creation networks. From ageneral perspective, three fundamentalbusiness models for the provisioning ofMOOCs can be identified (see Fig. 1).For categorization purposes, characteris-tic functions can be distinguished. De-pending on the business model, thesefunctions may be provided by differententities (e.g., universities, enterprises, ITservice providers, course participants, orthird-party institutions):• Funding: Provisioning of the financial
means needed for the course and thetechnical platform.
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• Course planning and operation: Di-dactical course planning, preparationand provisioning of teaching material,social learning interaction as well asexamination.
• Platform provision and marketing:Development and operation of thetechnical systems for the distributionof teaching contents, for the support ofthe teaching process, for user manage-ment and marketing.In the direct model, the same entity
accounts for the course and the techni-cal platform. This model is financed byparticipants (e.g., certification fees) or bythe educational institution that uses theMOOC for the promotion of comple-mentary offers. This model is primarilyapplied by enterprises for staff or cus-tomer training purposes. To some extent,it is also used by universities to increasethe reach of their educational offers andservices. Examples of this model includeopenHPI4 of the Hasso-Plattner Instituteor SAP´s openSAP-program.5
In the provider model, a dedicatedMOOC provider is in charge of the tech-nical infrastructure. The provider offersMOOCs of several educational institu-tions and is also responsible for the mar-keting of courses, as well as for user man-agement. Potential revenues through cer-tification fees are then divided betweenthe MOOC provider and the educationalinstitution. Examples of this model areMOOC2degree6 and Udemy.7
In the third party model, MOOCs areneither funded by the educational in-stitution nor exclusively by course par-ticipants; rather, they are additionallyfunded by revenues generated by of-fers for third party institutions. MOOCproviders can, for example, commer-cialize participants’ information by sell-ing it to potential employers or adver-tisers. A further source of funding canbe exploited if real company problemsare worked on by course participants inthe context of a crowdsourcing initia-tive.8 Beyond this, MOOC licenses maybe issued to other universities in orderto be included in their curriculum. The
MOOC providers Udacity and Cours-era,9 for example, use such sources ofincome.
4 Potentials, Challenges, andFuture Directions
Due to digitization and the emergence ofdigital value creation networks, MOOCsoffer a multitude of potentials to edu-cational institutions and companies withregard to the development of innova-tive educational offers as well as to theireffective and efficient provisioning:• Co-creation with learners: Through
the systematic use of social interac-tion mechanisms, such as peer sup-port or peer grading, value activitiestraditionally carried out by providersof educational services are systemati-cally sourced to MOOC participants.From an economic perspective, courseparticipants contribute actively to re-ducing education costs by taking onsubtasks of the teaching process, es-pecially in the areas of support andevaluation. From a didactical perspec-tive, this helps participants to internal-ize the learning content, as interactivevalue creation is usually accompaniedby positive learning effects (Reichwaldand Piller 2009).
• Low marginal costs: Due to the totaldigitization of educational services, thehigh automation of teacher-student in-teraction, as well as the systematic ex-ploiting of possibilities of interactivevalue creation, the marginal costs forthe scaling of courses are close to zero.Significant cost reductions can thus berealized (Vardi 2012).
• Long-tail offers: The lack of location-and time-dependency of MOOCsmakes it possible to address a globaltarget group, especially in the domainof vocational training. As a conse-quence, also specialized courses maynow be offered economically.
• Individualization of teaching services:Learning analytics facilitates the adap-tion of learning contents and teach-
ing methods to the needs of indi-vidual participants (Cooper and Sa-hami 2013). The use of existing e-learning methods and MOOC tech-nologies may be geared to individ-ual learning targets and participants’performance, thus facilitating person-alized courses with only little addi-tional expenses. Approaches of system-atically designing e-learning servic-ing (Wegener et al. 2012) may enableindividualization.
• Network effects: An increased dif-fusion of MOOCs could result ina considerably higher concentrationin the educational market. The rep-utation and brands of universitiescould become increasingly importantin the competitive acquisition of par-ticipants.10 Mechanisms of an “atten-tion” economy could become effec-tive and could lead to winner-takes-all markets. This is especially impor-tant in the context of third party fund-ing models in which MOOC providersopen up alternative sources of revenue.For instance, if providers of free ed-ucational services commercialize par-ticipant information, the revenue vol-ume increases with the number ofparticipants.In MOOCs, learners have to take
personal responsibility, as contact withteaching staff is highly restricted. In or-der to complete their courses success-fully, learners have to effectively mas-ter digital tools, reasonably manage theirtime and continuously motivate them-selves. Thus, the requirements for par-ticipation are high (Kop 2011) and can-not be fulfilled by all participants. Ac-cordingly, there is a high probability thatmany participants will not successfullycomplete their courses. For instance, thedropout rate of the MOOC “artificial in-telligence” at Stanford University in 2011was around 87 %.11 However, this prob-lem also exists in traditional in-class lec-tures, in which learning satisfaction andsuccess decrease with an increasing num-ber of participants (Cuseo 2007). More-over, community-based online courses
4https://openhpi.de/?locale=de.5https://open.sap.com/.6http://www.mooc2degree.com/.7https://www.udemy.com/.8http://trust.guidestar.org/2013/04/25/connect-with-students-to-mooc-source-your-data/.9https://www.coursera.org/.10Sebastian Thrun (CEO Udacity) assumes that in 50 years there will only be 10 universities worldwide. http://www.economist.com/news/international/21568738-online-courses-are-transforming-higher-education-creating-new-opportunities-best.11http://www.forbes.com/sites/collegeprose/2013/01/28/moocs-a-college-education-online/.
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show that aspects such as individual sup-port by the teacher, structured tasks forsmall groups, and evaluation of individ-ual and group performance are impor-tant for the success of learning (Wegenerand Leimeister 2012). These didactic ap-proaches, however, are difficult to realizewithin MOOCs due to the high numberof participants.
In principle, an automation of exam-inations and peer grading mechanismsmay help to deal with this lack of re-sources. However, there are still techno-logical and legal challenges. For exam-ple, if certification and grading of partic-ipants are strongly based on peer grad-ing, this would be highly questionablefrom a legal point of view. Automatedtests, moreover, are still not applicable forall types of learning contents and learn-ing targets. Rhetorical skills, for exam-ple, cannot be evaluated by means ofmultiple-choice tests.
The extent to which MOOCs can beclassified as competitors to educationaloffers of universities, colleges or compa-nies is debatable. Due to the high sig-nificance of social interaction with theteacher, significant substitution effectsare unlikely. Rather, initial MOOC ex-periences show that a complementary
application of MOOCs in the contextof blended learning emphasizes inter-activity during in-class lectures (flippedclassroom; Martin 2012).
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