Tag Archives: MOOCs

September 28, 2012, 3:47 pm

MOOC’s and the McDonaldization of Global Higher Education

We’ve been treated to a rash of stories about how new technological models for higher education raise questions about the viability of the traditional campus. After all, why invest in an elaborate physical plant when virtual education can effectively expand your reach exponentially?

This is of particular interest for global education and multinational universities, as the expense and difficulty of establishing foreign educational outposts may make virtual options seem even more attractive. At this point, though, it’s hard to see how massive open online courses, or MOOC’s, can be the silver bullet to developing globally engaged students or institutions.

To be clear and to set aside a straw-man argument, we don’t believe that MOOC’s were established with global engagement in mind. These entities are mostly about access.

However, they have become popular in overseas markets (…

September 6, 2012, 12:15 pm

Will MOOC’s Take Down Branch Campuses? We Don’t Think So

By Jason Lane and Kevin Kinser

In a recent blog on University World News, Rahul Choudaha argues that MOOC’s (massive open online courses) could lead to the decline of international branch campuses. There is some logic to this argument. Access to online learning is available just about anywhere, and economies of scale as represented by the MOOC’s can make education incredibly inexpensive. Branch campuses, on the other hand, double down on geography and are often more expensive than other local options. But does that make MOOC’s and branch campuses mutually exclusive options and interchangeable entities for the provision of higher education? We don’t think so.

Choudaha relies heavily on the notion that international branch campuses are currently unstable. Yes, there have been grand collapses such as George Mason University in the U.A.E. and Australia’s RMIT University in Malaysia. But we have no evidence that…