Online Colleges

Distance education  or  distance learning  is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a  school .  Traditionally this usually involved  correspondence courses  wherein the student corresponded with the school via  post . Today it involves  online education . Courses that are conducted (51 percent or more) are either  hybrid ,   blended  or 100% whole instruction.  Massive open online courses  (MOOCs), offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the  World Wide Web  or other network technologies, are recent developments in distance education.  A number of other terms (distributed learning, e-learning, online learning, etc.) are used roughly synonymously with distance education. One of the earliest attempts was advertised in 1728 in the Boston Gazette for "Caleb Philipps, Teacher of the new method of Short Hand," who sought studen...

The MOOC Guide suggests five possible challenges for cMOOCs: Relying on user-generated content can create a chaotic learning environment Digital literacy is necessary to make use of the online materials The time and effort required from participants may exceed what students are willing to commit to a free online course Once the course is released, content will be reshaped and reinterpreted by the massive student body, making the course trajectory difficult for instructors to control Participants must self-regulate and set their own goals Language and translation barriers These general challenges in effective MOOC development are accompanied by criticism by journalists and academics. Robert Zemsky (2014) argues that they have passed their peak: "They came; they conquered very little; and now they face substantially diminished prospects." Others have pointed to a backlash arising from the tiny completion rates. Some dispute that the ...

Many MOOCs use video lectures, employing the old form of teaching (lecturing) using a new technology. Thrun testified before the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that MOOC "courses are 'designed to be challenges,' not lectures, and the amount of data generated from these assessments can be evaluated 'massively using machine learning' at work behind the scenes. This approach, he said, dispels 'the medieval set of myths' guiding teacher efficacy and student outcomes, and replaces it with evidence-based, 'modern, data-driven' educational methodologies that may be the instruments responsible for a 'fundamental transformation of education' itself". Some view the videos and other material produced by the MOOC as the next form of the textbook. "MOOC is the new textbook", according to David Finegold of Rutgers University. A study of edX student habits found that certificate-earning students general...

Students served Coursera enrollees Country Percentage United States 27.7% India 8.8% Brazil 5.1% United Kingdom 4.4% Spain 4.0% Canada 3.6% Australia 2.3% Russia 2.2% Rest of world 41.9% Course Auditing Completing Disengaging Sampling High school 6% 27% 29% 39% Undergraduate 6% 8% 12% 74% Graduate 9% 5% 6% 80% Educator experience Completion rates By June 2012 more than 1.5 million people had registered for classes through Coursera, Udacity and/or edX. As of 2013, the range of students registered appears to be broad, diverse and non-traditional, but concentrated among English-speakers in rich countries. By March 2013, Coursera alone had registered about 2.8 million learners. By October 2013, Coursera enrollment continued to surge, surpassing 5 million, while edX had independently reached 1.3 million. A course billed as "Asia's first MOOC" given by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology through Coursera starting in April 2013 r...

Early cMOOCs such as CCK08 and ds106 used innovative pedagogy, with distributed learning materials rather than a video-lecture format, and a focus on education and learning, and digital storytelling respectively Following the 2011 launch of three stanford xMOOCs, including  Introduction Into AI , launched by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig a number of other innovative courses have emerged. As of May 2014, more than 900 MOOCs are offered by US universities and colleges. As of February 2013 dozens of universities had affiliated with MOOCs, including many international institutions. In addition, some organisations operate their own MOOCs – including Google's Power Search. A range of courses have emerged; "There was a real question of whether this would work for humanities and social science", said Ng. However, psychology and philosophy courses are among Coursera's most popular. Student feedback and completion rates suggest that they are as successful as math and scie...

Provider Type Example institutional participants Headquarters Founded Content License Stanford Online Non-profit Stanford University USA 2006 Free for registered users, personal/non-commercial usage Coursera Commercial Stanford University, Princeton University, Arizona State University, University of Maryland College Park, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign USA 2012 Free for registered users, different course licenses Khan Academy Non-profit n/a USA 2006 Free, No registration needed, all rights reserved. WizIQ Commercial IIT Delhi, Des Moines Area Community College India/USA 2007 Not Free, all rights reserved. Canvas Network Commercial Santa Clara University, University of Utah, Université Lille 1 USA 2008 All Rights Reserved, registration required. Peer to Peer University Non-profit n/a USA 2009 Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 Academic Earth Non-profit UC Berkeley, UCLA, University of Michigan, Oxford U...

cMOOCs and xMOOCs cMOOCs are based on principles from connectivist pedagogy indicating that material should be  aggregated  (rather than pre-selected),  remixable ,  re-purposable , and  feeding forward  (i.e. evolving materials should be targeted at future learning). cMOOC instructional design approaches attempt to connect learners to each other to answer questions and/or collaborate on joint projects. This may include emphasizing collaborative development of the MOOC. Andrew Ravenscroft of the London Metropolitan University claimed that connectivist MOOCs better support collaborative dialogue and knowledge building.As MOOCs have evolved, there appear to be two distinct types: those that emphasize the connectivist philosophy, and those that resemble more traditional courses. To distinguish the two, Stephen Downes proposed the terms "cMOOC" and "xMOOC". xMOOCs have a much more traditional course structure typically with a clearly ...