The first article by Warner was more of an editorial than a report published within the same venue, Inside Higher Ed: the article "Confirming the MOOC myth," written by Carl Straumsheim, which led me directly to the MOOC Research Initiative.
Here's the article, and my highlights of the various agents/actors (I am beginning to regard each of these named actors as a qualitas occulta):
Places and events: University of Texas, Arlington, TX; Conference for MOOCs Research Initiative; Thursday Organizations: Institutions all over the world, Gates Foundation, Athabasca University in Canada, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning; the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education; University of Michigan School of Information; Coursera; Higher Education; the University of Colorado System; Canvas; Wake Technical Community College; Udacity; state universities; Harvard; MIT; strategic relationships for Academic Partnerships Stakeholders with different interests: MOOCs; Gate's Foundation; scholars; users (active and not); MOOC producing and MOOC consuming institutions; Traditional universities; the University of Colorado System; Coursera; Udacity; Cavas; Wake Tech Individual: Christopher Brooks; Deborah Keyek-Franssen; Laura Kalbaugh; Akiba Covitz; Views of the world (network of controlling values): Not much of a pretense here: this is calculated to dismiss MOOCs as ineffective, leaving traditional institutions still holding the cards, and even carrying some of the consequences of the "overhyped" possibilities of MOOCS to produce return on investments. The scholar's researching MOOCs are foregrounded and the voices of MOOC producers are entirely silenced, and so cannot oppose the repetition of evidence that leaves the viability of MOOCS in tatters. MOOCs appear to be just a popular excursus from the real work of educating those who would not be active users in the MOOC environment. Something "Foxnewsy" in this treatment in how Straumsheim blocks out any conflicting view. I'm beginning to see a network emerge: traditional universities have guaranteed students, and consequently, income, but if MOOCs can provide access to the ethos of having learned, then traditional universities will dissipate. However, given the high enrollment and low completion rates, MOOCs have yet to pose a serious threat. Concerning detours, translations, and compositions: it all depends on which act we are looking at: let's take traditional education/institutions. MOOCs pose a significant enough challenge to traditional educational delivery that responses are warranted, and yet despite a profusion of withering responses, the business of MOOCs goes on by virtue of an electrified community of committed scholars who do not seem to be concerned with the impact of their work on traditional educational systems and practices. The composition taking place in this article is the placing together of common viewpoints of MOOCs as having low completion rates and burdening host institutions with exorbitant costs with little return. |