Learning by MOOC or by crook

MJA 200 (4) · 3 March 2014 192 or those who have not been keeping up with recent developments in education, MOOCs, or “massive open online courses”, are the latest potential benefit — or threat — to higher education, depending on your point of view.1 The idea is that someone puts their course of lectures online for free and thousands of people access and learn from them. There had been some early courses placed online and open to all, but the term “massive” came into its own when two Stanford University lecturers put a course online and 160 000 people enrolled. Education by the world’s best can be made available to all, although most courses do not yet offer university credits. Students can join discussion forums with the tutor and with other students. Individualised feedback to students is limited by class size, although social networks evolve between students. This type of education has advanced rapidly, and companies have been established to develop or, alternatively, exploit, this trend — again depending on your point of view. As might be imagined, this has caused some universities to fear that they may be replaced by the advance of the MOOC, and, probably as insurance, many Australian universities are now partners in the various MOOC companies. A recent literature review found “Formal comprehensive analyses of MOOCs mostly concur that they are disruptive and possibly threatening to current HE [higher education] models” although the review concludes: “MOOCs are heading to become a significant and possibly a standard element of credentialed University education, exploiting new pedagogical models, discovering revenue and lowering costs.”1 The Open University in the United Kingdom showed it was possible to enrol all-comers into tertiary education and to educate them successfully to graduation and successful academic and professional careers. The Open University now owns a private company that provides a platform through which many UK universities, one Australian university and one New Zealand university offer MOOCs.2 This development builds on two major advances — the internet, with its almost ubiquitous reach; and the open source revolution,3 which has allowed computer software to be freely shared and has led on to open publishing, including free sharing of research findings in open access journals,4 and open educational resources (OER)5 — of which there are many thousands available on the internet to be freely accessed and shared. What is the global reach of MOOCs? There is a fear, since some of the companies formed to develop and distribute MOOCs are for-profit, that the business model will inhibit global spread to where they could do most Richard F Heller MD, FRACP, FAFPHM, Professor