Massive Open Online Courses: Disruptive innovations or disturbing inventions?
Published | November 2013 |
Journal | Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning Volume 28, Issue 3, Pages 216 - 226 |
Publisher | Taylor & Francis Online |
ABSTRACT
According to Christensen and Horn, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are serving non-consumers. Although they are limited in the services they provide compared with traditional colleges, they offer free and accessible education to a broader audience, who cannot afford the traditional provision. However, this is a characteristic of online distance learning in its broadest sense, as can be read in the reports of UNESCO. For MOOCs to be disruptive, they have to: open up markets by competing with the existing firms using low-cost business models; improve beyond the level of the original competitors, taking price differences into account; and improve quality and replace the established firms. In this article, we are going to look at whether MOOCs are really disruptive innovations, or educational innovations that disturb the present state without driving out old educational business models. Based on the three characteristics of Christensen and Horn, our conclusion will be that the latter is the case. This does not mean that traditional education can ignore MOOCs, open educational resources and other forms of online distance learning, but that it will not be a direct competitor for degree-searching students.Keywords | management of educational organisations · open business models · Open Educational Resources |
ISSN | 1469-9958 |
Refereed | Yes |
Rights | © Taylor & Francis |
DOI | 10.1080/02680513.2013.870882 |
Other information | Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning |
Export options | BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar |
Viewed by 31 distinct readers
CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS
The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.
Click a star to be the first to rate this document
▶ POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS
There is no business model for open educational resources: A business model approach
de Langen, Frank
The economic proverb ‘There is no such thing such as a free lunch’ applies also to open educational resources (OER). In recent years, several authors have used revenue models and business models to analyse the ...
Match: de Langen, Frank; management of educational organisations; open business models
Sustainability of open education through collaboration
de Langen, Frank
The definition of openness influenced the sustainability of business models of Open Education (OE). Yet, whether openness is defined as the free (re)usage of resources, or the free entry in courses, there always is a ...
Match: de Langen, Frank
Open Educational Resources
OER include full courses, course materials, knowledge activities, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.
Match: Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources
Mallon, Melissa
Match: Open Educational Resources
Open Educational Resources
Marcus-Quinn, Ann; Diggins, Yvonne
This paper focuses on the significant developments in the area of open education, in particular the role that Open Educational Repositories (OER) can play in higher education, teaching, learning and scholarship. The ...
Match: Open Educational Resources
Open educational resources
Havemann, Leo; Peters, Michael A.; Peters, M A.
Introduction
For many in education, the term Open Educational Resources or OER probably translates functionally as ‘free resources on the internet’. But this shorthand provides only a partial definition which ...
Conversations from south of the equator: Challenges and opportunities in OER across Broader Oceania
James, Rosalind; Bossu, Carina
Recent decades have witnessed a number of fundamental structural shifts, both internally within the higher education academy and external to it, that have transformed the character of universities. A universal, ...
Match: Open Educational Resources
Open educational resources at UCL
Tiedau, Ulrich
OER Commons is the first comprehensive open learning network where teachers and professors (from pre-K to graduate school) can access their colleagues course materials, share their own, and collaborate on affecting ...
Match: Open Educational Resources
Cost-savings achieved in two semesters through the adoption of open educational resources
Hilton, John; Robinson, T.; Wiley, David A.; Ackerman, J.
Textbooks represent a significant portion of the overall cost of higher education in the United States. The burden of these costs is typically shouldered by students, those who support them, and the taxpayers who fund ...
Match: Open Educational Resources
Images and the open educational resources (OER) movement
Perez, Jorge Enrique
With the growing interest in faculty publication in Open Educational Resources (OER), librarians have not only been tasked in becoming well versed in locating OER materials for instructors but also assisting with ...
Match: Open Educational Resources