Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Amid all the discussion around Athabasca's Mooc Research Initiative was the really good comment that ". This research project appears to have made a deep identification of MOOC with large, centralised providers. Any effort that does not involve large, centralized  providers is already deemed an 'alternative'." Venkataraman Balaji added, in an email, "It would be interesting to speculate what if a similar approach  had gained ground in the earlier stages of OER movement; for example, if OER was identified deeply with celebrity projects like the OCW or CNX, would new, large scale contributors have come on the scene? ...viewing OER as a more generic paradigm with a few initial, shining examples like OCW gave confidence to workers in developing countries that they could meaningfully participate in the global OER paradigm." He refers us to this course as an example of what we might call 'generic MOOC' (as opposed to the heavily publicized 'brand name MOOC' initiatives). I know Coursera and EdX are signing up a lot of partners, but I'm seeing a lot - a lot - of activity outside their corporate firewalls. Which is good, and necessary.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 28, 2024 07:08 a.m.

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