Internet Learning Volume 4, Number 2, Fall 2015 | Page 62
The Tangible and Intangible Benefits of Offering Massive Open Online Courses: Faculty Perspectives
Overall, the participants stated MOOCs
offer a wide variety of benefits. However,
even without prompting on the survey, some
participants noted drawbacks of MOOCs.
The Drawbacks of offering MOOCs
One of the major of concerns for any
institution offering courses, face-to-face or
online, are completion rates. Participants
in this study noted that for MOOCs,
specifically, the completion rate is roughly
5% due to many students enrolling in a
course and then dropping out. This low
completion rate may seemingly reflect that
MOOCs, as noted by participants, offer a
very low level of educational benefits or may
be seen as a supplement to teaching and
not the primary means of delivering course
content.
Faculty who participated in this
study suggested that MOOCs “online
offering effectiveness is limited to teaching
definitions and for reinforcement practice”
as there are some courses that simply and
logically cannot be taught online. Reflecting
this sentiment, one participant stated, “A
simple example is swimming. Few people
will learn how to swim by taking an online
course” and suggested that this example
can be extrapolated to many other fields of
study.
According to participants, these
drawbacks and limitations also impact how
students perceive MOOCs. Because of the
lack of pressure to achieve high grades (a
cited benefit by some participants), students
may view MOOCs as optional entertainment
rather than an academically rigorous course.
However, another participant suggested that
the limitations of MOOCs may relate to the
student’s motivation. This participant noted
“if the user [student] is not motivated (i.e.,
use of the MOOC format is coerced), then
the benefits of MOOCs are zilch”. The lack of
motivation by students may provide insight
into the mixed results universities may
receive on student success. As one faculty
participant explained, “universities across
the country are having mixed results. They
will not necessarily be “better” or “worse”,
but like any course, it will depend on the
structure of the course and learning styles of
the participants”.
Yet, the lack of motivation on the
instructor’s behalf to create an engaging
MOOC course design may be explained
by an instructor’s previous experience
with and preference for another online
course program. One participant explained
preference for another online program in
the following response:
I teach many online courses and
have since 2001 and I have been
closely following the professional
development issue. MOOCs are useful
if offered entirely freely online, but as a
replacement for actual courses (online,
with regular caps of 25-30, or face-toface)
they are worse than useless as
current studies are showing. However,
I strongly support [online program].
Instructors who have spent several
years teaching may have experience with
other online course programs and find those
may yield more success for students than
MOOCs.
Whether the drawbacks of MOOCs
are related to the lack of motivation from
the student, instructor, or the university
which provides little or no support, MOOCs
present real challenges for teaching students
online. As institutions and instructors work
to overcome the challenges of offering
MOOCs, one participant reminds the
researchers in this study that first, everyone
must be able to define and understand
MOOCs. While question branching logic
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