Accommodating MOOCs into HEI: is blended-learning the solution?

Abstract

MOOCs are without discussion one of the key changers in education, and in particular in higher education. They affect both on-Campus universities and on-line. Advisory boards in Universities face the need to accommodate a new player in the learning process arena. The MOOC tsunami affects Universities, forcing them to offer MOOCs assuming costs. On the other side, MOOC platform managers need to convince Universities that creating and offering MOOCs is a must, generating revenues at the same time.

This article tries to solve the dilemma: Universities need MOOCs – which means assuming the costs of creating them -, or at least that’s the impression. MOOC providers need Universities to create them but cannot offer clear revenues in return. In the perfect world, MOOC creation would be free for universities, and could be offered through MOOC platforms to increase visibility. MOOC providers would look for their own sources of financing to get revenues – and generate benefits-. We will focus on the University point of view. Universities need to bear costs to create MOOCs. The paper will quantify these costs, and analyse how they can be assumed. Our work hypothesis is that the MOOC model can be sustainable if we create MOOCs not for MOOCs themselves but as a way to improve on-Campus teaching. That means the MOOC will not be generated from scratch, but based on a previously SPOC course. If we do so, traditional teaching can partially accommodate the costs of creation.

After the cost analysis is done, we will verify if the model fits into university strategy. The case exposed in the article will be based in a real subject offered to on-Campus students, which has also been offered as MOOC. The subject has been taught both as SPOC model and as MOOC course. We will try to show lessons learned from the experience.