MOOCs/Distance Education
UW–Madison has announced that it will offer four pilot courses as part of a new delivery system in higher education known as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
The UW and 28 other universities from around the world have entered into partnerships with an online learning company, Coursera, to offer these courses, which promise to transform the traditional classroom. Two of them are scheduled to begin this fall, with the others to follow.
A MOOC is an online course aimed at large-scale participation and open access via the Web. They are a recent development in the area of distance education and build on earlier concepts for innovative course delivery. Courses use multimedia presentations, including video, and encourage learning through online interaction among students.
The classes are free and open to anyone, including current UW–Madison students and parents, although they are not yet offered for credit. There is no limit on the number of participants.
“MOOCs are a means to increase the range of ways we can offer education to learners,” says Interim Chancellor David Ward, who has encouraged creating learning alternatives through the Educational Innovation effort he launched in 2012. “The future of learning is connecting with people where they are at — increasingly, those places are online. We fully recognize the necessity for direct personal communication in higher education, but we must also experiment and explore the potentialities of online technologies.”
The four pilot courses will showcase five UW–Madison faculty who will teach topics with broad appeal. They include:
- More than a High Score: Video Games & Learning, taught by Constance Steinkuehler, associate professor of digital media with the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Kurt Squire, professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. Both are co-directors of the Games+Learning+Society Center within the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.
- Globalizing Higher Education and Research for the "Knowledge Economy,” taught by Kris Olds, professor in the Department of Geography, and University of Bristol (United Kingdom) professor Susan L. Robertson.
- Human Evolution: Past and Future, taught by John Hawks, associate professor, Department of Anthropology.
- Markets with Frictions, taught by Randall Wright, professor, Wisconsin School of Business.
Private funding is being sought to support MOOCs, ensuring that funding for other educational innovations and campus initiatives will not be diminished. Officials at Coursera say the courses will continue to be free and will be delivered without advertising.
More information about MOOCs, including course descriptions, biographies of the faculty, and frequently asked questions, can be found on the university’s Educational Innovation website.