Online Degree’s have been around for some time, however, recently we have seen groundbreaking initiatives from some our nations most highly regarded schools such as Stanford and MIT as they leverage the technology platforms to create MOOC’s (massively open online courses) provided by third party companies such as Udacity, Coursera and edX. These companies run the platform, and also provide the support staff, whilst the material is provided by the school. Revenues are split between the school and the technology partner.
This plug and play approach to the coursework allows a school to vastly widen the net of potential candidates who can access and sit for studies. Thus far we have only really seen this deployed in non accredited courses, such as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) course at Stanford and a plethora of other courses at MIT.
A free Beta Test of the platform
These educational giants started by providing non accredited courses for free, or very low cost. By giving these courses away like this the schools were able to get a broad section of testers to confirm the scalability and robustness of the platform prior to becoming a revenue based system.
This was easily done with over 170,000 people signing up for the AI course at Stanford.. And in order to justify serious revenue from the course Accreditation is required, and Georgia Tech has announced that it is one of the first schools to offer a course using this platform. Starting soon, Georgia Tech will offer a Masters in Computer Science; costs will be around $6,600 per year rather than the $45,000 for a regular degree.
How this will disrupt learning as we know it
Colleges often cite a desire for strong extra curricular interests and a desire for diversity in their students. However I have personally long felt that many of the most prestigious schools are already incestuous in their nature of student demographic. Certainly they have a section of people that ‘shouldn’t be there’ because of financial or family reasons, but the vast majority of students at the top schools in the US are cookie cutters who do not have the right mix of dynamics in their environment to create really disruptive ideas.
I feel that lowering the barrier to entry of the top schools by using a MOOC Degree Program will further harm the bricks and mortar student base, as this type of degree will still be seen as inferior to many, and as such only adopted by those who would not otherwise attend, or were on the cusp of attendance and made the logical financial decision to opt for a plan that costs about 1/7 of the cost of regular attendance.
I believe that the growth of MOOC study will result in a degradation of quality from the traditional degree student, which will in turn help a future revolution in the acceptance of the MOOC Student.
Is Education about the Journey, or the Destination?
I have felt that all education, from Pre-K upwards is not about the diploma and proof of academic competence, instead, the real lesson one gains from education is the ability to co-exist with others and create relationships whilst working towards shared goals. As such, when college Graduates are interviewing for jobs for the most part they don’t undertake a series of re-examinations of technical aspects, they take a series of re-examinations of their interpersonal skills, in the form of interviews. These are tests of personality and do include a smattering of rational thinking challenges, but the key to passing any interview will always be in forming a connection and bond with the interviewer. It is people skills that count.
However, the right Transcript always opens the door.
Removing the Barriers to Education
It remains to be seen whether business will accept the transcript of a MOOC student to open the door to interview, but I would imagine the profile of candidate they would find would be one of similar technical competence, lower salary requirements but perhaps with lower interpersonal and political navigation skills from an education outside of the norm. Just imagine, with this MOOC Masters in Computer Science from Georgia Tech there could be a small town in India that suddenly gains 20 Masters Degreee Candidates, the idea of outsourcing just got shaken up remarkably.
However, if the town was otherwise untouched by geopolitical influence then would these newly minted graduates be globalized sufficiently to manage international clients?
Bolt on Services for incompetent Graduate Students
Perhaps what we will see is a growth in additional services surrounding interpersonal skills in these candidates, with professional development organizations tailoring programs to fill the skill gap and balance out a technically savvy, but socially inept person. Could this also be delivered using a MOOC program, or would it require at least a little human contact?
Collaboration Software
One saving grace in the support system for a MOOC program would be the growth and accessibility of collaborative software, video conferencing and google ‘hangouts’ are free and easy to use and would create interaction between students, developing skills. Additionally looking at software that encourages real life encounters, such as web based provider meetup.com could well provide the support group that MOOC students require in order to form the networks and networking skills required to succeed.
Conclusion
I find the introduction of a MOOC Masters from a top technology school a very positive thing for our world. By removing geographical and financial barriers to knowledge we as a planet will evolve and progress further and faster than ever before. This is a great thing for us. It is worth noting that with more skilled applicants the workplace becomes more competitive, and this is frequently resisted by those who have a job now, but are hanging it on to it by the skin of their teeth. As such as we progress we can also expect backlash.
Education should never be held in the hands of the few, barriers to education only harm our future to protect an individual today, and are not part of a fair market economy system. I hope that we see more schools rolling out programs like this in the near future, and I guarantee you that if they do, we will see, in the not too distant future, the next great innovation from the Internet coming from one of these students.
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