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Business models for MOOC's

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Thrun: no business-model. Het zou een revolutie zijn, een hele nieuwe manier van onderwijs geven.

Thrun: no business-model

Maar de man die de mooc-hype ontketende keert zich er nu vanaf. Udacity, één van de drie grote aanbieders van gratis online onderwijs, gaat zich richten op bedrijfscursussen. “We hebben een waardeloos product”, zei Udacity-oprichter Sebastiaan Thrun deze week tijdens een interview. “Wat wij bieden is bij lange na niet zo goed als wat een traditioneel liberal arts college te bieden heeft.” Opmerkelijke uitspraken van de man die ooit beweerde “de magische formule” voor onderwijs te hebben gevonden. Zelf heeft Thrun er kennelijk geen vertrouwen meer in. Ook niet onbelangrijk: de durfkapitalisten die miljoenen in Udacity pompten hebben er geen vertrouwen meer in. Experts speculate on possible business models for MOOC providers.

Massively open online courses, or MOOCs, do not currently lead to any widely recognized credential.

Experts speculate on possible business models for MOOC providers

Still, with more than 1.5 million people having registered for MOOCs through Coursera, Udacity and edX, the demand for the novel online offerings is undeniable. But while demand appears to be high, none of these three organizations -- two of which are for-profit companies that will be expected to generate money for investors and the other of which is a nonprofit that will be expected to stand on its own feet eventually -- currently has a business plan. They can afford it, for now. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University together have committed $60 million to edX, Coursera has raised $16 million in venture funding, and Udacity is sitting on an undisclosed infusion from Charles River Ventures.

They have cash to burn, and each has focused on establishing partnerships with reputable institutions and professors and harnessing available technologies in its platform. Evgenymorozov : The real money is in building... BBC: University launches online course with TV show. 5 September 2013Last updated at 07:52 ET By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent A university course will be based on TV show the Walking Dead Can zombies be the stuff of serious academic study?

BBC: University launches online course with TV show

And could they be shuffling towards a new type of future for higher education? In what is being claimed as the biggest ever experiment in "edutainment", a US television company is forming a partnership with a top-ranking Californian university to produce online courses linked to a hit TV show. This blurring of the digital boundaries between academic study and the entertainment industry will see a course being launched next month based on the post-apocalypse drama series the Walking Dead.

Television shows might have spin-off video games or merchandising, but this drama about surviving disaster and social collapse is now going to have its own university course. Showbiz lessons. The Walking Dead. Een hitserie vol spanning, drama en indrukwekkende special effects.

The Walking Dead

Niemand minder dan Glen Mazzara, Frank Darabont (The Shawsank Redemption, The Green Mile) en Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, Aliens, Armageddon) zijn verantwoordelijk voor de regie en productie. The Walking Dead (TV Series 2010– Foliaweb: MOOCs grote investeringen voor universiteiten. Foto: Giulia Forsythe, Flickr cc Onderwijs25 september 2013 16:00 |Het klinkt voor velen als een onderwijsutopie: gratis of betaalbaar online wetenschappelijk onderwijs volgen van toppers als Harvard, MIT en onze eigen Communicatiewetenschap van de UvA.

foliaweb: MOOCs grote investeringen voor universiteiten

Het is echter niet zo mooi als het klinkt, stelt Rachelle DeJong op de website Minding The Campus. Universiteiten tellen tienduizenden dollars neer voor hun MOOCs. It involves writing lecture scripts, rethinking course structure, creating a slew of multiple choice quizzes, adapting grading software, filming lectures and (sometimes) discussion groups, editing footage, and building a course page. Once the course goes live online, someone has to pay for chat feed monitors, glitch repair, and a squad of tutors and administrators. Zo telde de universiteit van Pennsylvania ruim vijftig duizend dollar neer per vak voor hun samenwerking met Coursera. Volgens Rachelle DeJong is investeren in MOOCs in ieder geval wel de moeite waard. ScienceGuide: EU opens up education. 3 oktober 2013 - The dust has finally settled after the great MOOC storm of 2012.

ScienceGuide: EU opens up education

What did we learn from the MOOC-hype and did the EU succeed in translating it into a successful Open Education Resources strategy? A week after the publication of Opening up Education, open education specialists from around Europe gathered at the ‘Opening up Education’ seminar organized by Nether to discuss this document for the first time. What did stick after a year of discussing MOOCS and Open Educational Resources? Ana Carla Pereira, Head of the Unit Skills and Qualifications Strategies at the European Commission says: “MOOCs determine the entire picture of what is going on in open education, but they are just a small part of this discussion.

Ashford University

John Cochrane Mooconomics. An Economist article and Alex Tabarrok in a Marginal Revolution blog post weigh in on the future and economic structure of moocs (massively open online classes).

John Cochrane Mooconomics

A few thoughts on this question, based on my experience teaching a Coursera mooc last fall. (This was supposed to be a short post, and grew out of control. Oh well.) Yes, moocs potentially upend the fundamental economic structure of teaching. Teaching had been a high marginal cost business. But.. Part of the high fixed costs lie in the limitations of the software. The difficulty of using the software and its capabilities should get better. Don't dream of doing a mooc on your own. High and continuing fixed costs has economic and strategic lessons. Yet, for the moment, the market price is "free. " The grumpy response to moocs: When Gutenberg invented moveable type, universities reacted in horror.