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At Harvard, Apparently, Many Faculty Feel that the Oversight of Online Courses Was Overlooked

Byuclafaculty

From the Harvard Crimson:

Fifty-eight professors from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences requested in a letter Thursday to FAS Dean Michael D. Smith that he appoint a faculty committee to draft “ethical and educational principles” that would provide a framework for FAS engagement with HarvardX, the University’s curricular contributions to edX. The letter, shared with The Crimson by one of its signatories, asks that those principles be brought to a faculty vote in the 2013-2014 academic year. “It is our responsibility to ensure that HarvardX is consistent with our commitment to our students on campus, and with our academic mission,” the letter reads. “Given the rapid pace of development of HarvardX, we believe it is essential to have a formal, sustained, and structured faculty discussion on these issues as soon as possible.”…

The faculty first extensively discussed HarvardX as a body at its monthly meeting last December, and a number of professors have voiced concern about the project in recent months. Most recently, at the May faculty meeting, a number of professors have questioned what they described as Harvard’s rapid advance into online education. That debate, which was part of a larger conversation about the faculty’s relationship with administrators, centered around what several professors called a lack of meaningful consultation on the development of HarvardX…

Full story at http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/5/23/professors-edx-oversight-fas/

The letter from the 58 faculty members (with a listing of their names) is at:
http://www.thecrimson.com/flash-graphic/2013/5/23/edx-faculty-letter-smith/

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story about the letter which includes this information:

…(T)he 58 signatories of the letter, out of the hundreds of professors in the FAS, might not get their way. In a written statement to The Chronicle, a spokesman for the dean suggested that a new committee, consisting solely of FAS professors, was not in the cards…

Full story at http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/harvard-professors-call-for-greater-oversight-of-moocs/43953

UPDATE: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/28/harvard-professors-demand-greater-role-oversight-edx

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Jerry Brown Looks for an Online Course that Requires No Human Interaction

Byuclafaculty

At the Regents meeting of January 22, 2014, Gov. Brown seems to be searching for an online course that requires no human interaction.  Such a course, he reasons, could have unlimited enrollment because it is completely self-contained.  He gets some pushback from UC Provost Dorr, who thinks courses should have such interaction.  You can hear this excerpt at the link below.  The entire meeting of the Committee on Educational Policy of the Regents was posted yesterday.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tYFLJvrE3g?feature=player_detailpage]

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Listen to Part of the Regents Afternoon Session of 1-22-2014

Byuclafaculty

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MOOCs in the Muck

Byuclafaculty

Good question! Inside Higher Ed today runs an article on MOOC offerings at the U of Texas and Cornell.  At the former, there are the usual extremely low completion rates.  At the latter, resident students are asking the question in the photo at the right: …”A year after UT began rolling out nine Massive Online Open Courses, the results are in,” The Daily Texan wrote in a Jan. 29 editorial… Among the “results” are completion rates ranging from 1 to 13 percent, the lack of credit granting courses and the $150,000 to $300,000 production costs…  (S)tudents at Cornell voiced similar concerns,…

Follow Up: Harvard B-School Says It is Improving Itself

Byuclafaculty

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MOOc

Byuclafaculty

An interesting analysis of MOOCs in a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Stanford economist Caroline M. Hoxby suggests that heavy dependence on online ed won’t work for what she terms highly selective post-secondary educational institutions.  In essence, such institutions depend in important ways on alumni loyalty which is hard to obtain if students take courses online that come from anywhere. Abstract: I consider how online postsecondary education, including massive open online courses (MOOCs), might fit into economically sustainable models of postsecondary education. I contrast nonselective postsecondary education (NSPE)in which institutions sell fairly standardized educational services in return…