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ASU set to join trend of offering non-credit online courses for free By Anne Ryman The Republic | azcentral.com Mon Nov 26, 2012 11:16 PM Harvard offers them. Stanford and Duke offer them, and so do more than two dozen other universities around the country. Soon, Arizona State University and Scottsdale Community College will join a growing number of institutions offering “massive open online courses,” or MOOCs — free online classes that are open to anyone with an Internet connection. The trend could transform higher education as universities and colleges compete for new ways to expose potential students of any age to what they have to offer. ASU plans to launch a course as early as August that is still untitled but will help people navigate important life decisions such as going back to school, retiring or marrying, said Phil Regier, executive vice provost and dean of ASU Online. The course will be free and is not currently available online through the university. Scottsdale Community College, part of the Maricopa County Community College District, will offer a basic math class beginning in February. Massive open online courses have received a lot of attention as more universities have announced plans to put courses online. Private companies are also entering the market by providing online platforms where the courses are housed. Some educators view the trend as a potential game changer in higher education, especially if universities decide to offer credit for the courses. Others see the concept as a complement, rather than a fundamental change to conventional education. The free price tag could be a challenge to expansion as universities are already struggling to provide for their own students with reduced state funding. “MOOCs are overall a very positive development going on in higher education,” Regier said. “It’s important to remember these are courses. They aren’t an entire curriculum. They aren’t any type of learning environment right now.” People can’t get college degrees or course credit through MOOCs. The target audience extends beyond the current student body to people in other countries who may not have as much access to higher education. Working adults also find MOOCs attractive as a way to check out the latest developments in their career fields. Other people have an interest in a specific topic and want to sample a course in astronomy, poetry, or Greek and Roman mythology. Dozens of free online courses are available, ranging from algebra to astronomy, finance to statistics. Harvard offers an introduction to computer science, while Stanford has a design-of-algorithms course. Some of the courses are self-paced; others last several weeks. Besides being non-credit, MOOCs differ from traditional college courses in other ways. Enrollment is open, meaning a person doesn’t have to be a student to attend. Some courses are graded; others aren’t. Dropout rates can be high. In some courses, more than 90 percent of the students don’t stick with the course to the end. A student may have little or no interaction with the professor because tens of thousands can be enrolled. Betty Campbell, a Phoenix resident who owns a music studio, says free online courses appeal to her. “Continuing to learn new things and being exposed to new ideas helps with memory, concentration and a sense of accomplishment,” she said. Officials at Northern Arizona University and University of Arizona have discussed offering some version of free, open online courses, and UA offers a handful of courses on iTunes. At this point, NAU and UA haven’t decided to move forward with anything like what ASU and Scottsdale Community College will be doing. ASU’s Regier said the university plans to start with a single course, but he isn’t closing the door on adding others. Additional courses would have to be chosen strategically, though, because of the expense. The free courses also can’t compete with the tuition-paid ones ASU already offers, he said. “What we won’t do, almost certainly, is put up a course we’re currently offering and let anyone in the world take it for free,” he said. “We currently have a lot of students who are paying for those courses. The way we generate tuition revenue for salaries and staff is by charging tuition for those courses.” Scottsdale Community College’s basic-arithmetic course will be an easy and free way for people to brush up on math skills, said instructor Donna Gaudet. The free course is the same as the college’s for-credit course except students don’t take the final exam. The online study materials are also free. “This is going to be a grand experiment,” said Gaudet, who isn’t being paid to do the course. She has no idea how many students will enroll but is setting up ways for students to interact through online discussion boards. She also plans to make herself available for online chats to answer questions. Free, open online courses have been somewhat controversial as university administrators wrestle with how far to take the trend. At a Stanford University faculty meeting earlier this year, a committee assigned to review free online courses concluded they had significant value but should have the lowest priority. The university’s primary mission is to teach its own students. Some institutions, such as the University of Southern California, have no intention of offering free online courses. USC President C.L. Max Nikias in August sent a memo to faculty and staff critical of the growing trend of other universities offering free online courses “with scant concern for whether enrollees ever complete a course.” USC’s goal, he wrote, is to ensure that the educational experience is reserved for only students with the interest and ability to meet the faculty’s high expectations. Some experts predict that MOOCs will evolve with time. Michael Horn, executive director of the non-profit think tank Innosight Institute in San Mateo, Calif., says colleges will have to develop a business model for free online classes if they want them to be sustainable. This could include charging a fee, for instance, if someone wants to get a certification for completing the course. “It sort of feels like universities are saying, ‘Oh my God, we better do this because people are looking at this and wondering what we are doing.’ It doesn’t seem strategic right now,” he said. Reach the reporter at 602-444-8072. Some free online courses Introduction to Computer Science, self-paced, Harvard University. The Modern World: Global History Since 1760, 15 weeks, University of Virginia. Introduction to Music Production, 6 weeks, Berklee College of Music. Astrobiology and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life, 5 weeks, University of Edinburgh. The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound and Color, 5 weeks, Wesleyan University. Financial Engineering and Risk Management, 10 weeks, Columbia University. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, 7 weeks, Stanford University. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue, 12 weeks, Duke University. Introductory Organic Chemistry, 7 weeks, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Basic Arithmetic, 14 weeks, Scottsdale Community College. Details: canvas.net/courses/basic-arithmetic. To see more courses, go to coursera.org/courses, edx.org/courses or udacity.com. |