Educational Technology Blog

Open Courses, Resources & Free Education

November 11th, 2009

Education may be free with online courses from Apple’s iTunes U and MIT’s Open Courseware (OCW) but  who are these courses for? Casual learners or students? Students are at least partially motivated by certification and a social life with their peers. An article in the Higher Education Chronicle illustrates this point with  a story about Steve (USA) who spent lots of time studying online courses but is about to lose his job through lack of certification.

The quality of the resources in MIT’s OCW and iTunesU is high but they cost time and money to produce and maintain – particularly in the case of multimedia materials. These materials do not allow for any interaction with professors or peers or include assessment. So they cannot on their own be used for certification purposes.  If they were to be used for accreditation, what fees would be charged? What would their impact be on their traditional campus-based courses?  Perhaps they could be combined with online tutoring and assessment for accreditation purposes, but, if so how will MIT and others differentiate their their online degrees from their conventional campus-based offerings. Many US universities have similar online courses, whether they will continue to be developed and funded depends in many cases on the answers to these questions.

The University of the People is a new, ambitious project, offering free degrees online.  It is based in the USA but offering education to the world. Course materials are available online and students support each other through peer to peer teaching. Each module is supported by a volunteer professional educator who  selects and edits the materials and facilitates learning in the student forums. University of the People  intends to have its degrees accredited by a recognised university.

The Open University (UK) is a pioneer of distance learning. They are publishing many of their materials free on the web through OpenLearn. However, to gain a degree students must register and pay for a course where they are supported by a tutor or e-moderator.  The term e-moderator was coined by Gilly Salmon, then a professor in the Open University (OU) Business School. An e-moderator leads students through structured activities and manages discussion in an online environment. As part of the learning process the students are encouraged to get to know each other online.

Taking a different tack, universities in Ireland and the UK have set up national repositories for the sharing of learning resources. The National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR) in Ireland and JORUM (UK) are building collections of resources created by academics to be shared with their peers.  The NDLR is developing communities of practice to encourage reuse and sharing among its members as part of their current educational practice. In a similar vein, спални комплектиMerlot is an international, open repository for the sharing of peer-reviewed learning resources. There are many other free, online   educational resources but their quality varies,  including those published by universities.

Entry Filed under: NDLR,resources,society