17 The Future of E-Ducation: the Impact of Technology and Analytics on the Education Industry
MOOCs are revolutionary in offering students free, world-renowned education that can be completed anywhere and at any time. Stanford Professor Ng explains how MOOCs are revolutionary for the way in which they change the economics of education. In particular, they allow “one professor to teach not just one student but 100,000” (Grossman, 2013).
and can communicate with teaching staff. MOOCs also vary in whether they impose time restrictions that mimic the university experience, or allow students to work at their own pace. MOOCs predominantly offer tertiary level education and target students over the age of 18. However, with parental approval, students from the age of 13 are encouraged to participate in different courses. Some of the open source platforms that offer tertiary-standard MOOCs are Coursera.org, Edx.org, futurelearn.org, Udacity.com, OpenupEd.eu, openlearning.com, and Ulearniversity.com. Although each MOOC platform performs a similar function, they each offer something different. Coursera.org and EdX.org are virtually similar. They both offer courses from globally leading universities in a wide range of topics from humanities and social sciences to medicine and business. They encourage students to learn at their own pace, but to complete courses within a time frame that mimics a traditional university course. Coursera.org and EdX.org offer their students feedback though interactive assessments and discussion platforms. OpenupEd.eu is very similar, aside for the fact that it focuses on offering courses from European universities. Openlearning.com is the Australian equivalent; it offers courses in a variety of topics that are both time-restricted and self-paced. Futurelearn.org is based at the Open University, and provides MOOCs from over 25 different UK Universities, in collaboration with huge cultural and educational institutions such as the British Council, the British Library, and the British Museum. Particularly important to this platform is that it encourages online learners to interact with one another, a principle known as “community supported learning”. Conversely, Udacity.com doesn’t promote itself as a university course provider. It offers courses largely based on computer science, mathematics and business for all ages. Udacity does not restrict students to a time frame and tries to offer courses for all types of students, including high-school aged students. It is also unique in offering its students virtual field trips all around the world via its short video lectures. Ulearniversity.com offers a MOOC platform where tertiary and secondary-level teachers can create online, Open Source platforms themselves. It subsequently allows any student or learner to access the content. Each of these MOOC platforms present and deliver the same products to learners although they are offered in a manner of different ways. MOOCs are revolutionary in offering students free, world-renowned education that can be completed anywhere and at any time. Stanford Professor Ng explains how MOOCs are revolutionary for the way in which they change the economics of education. In particular, they allow “one professor to teach not just one student but 100,000” (Grossman, 2013). Moreover, as traditional universities’ fees continue to