Stephen Downes

keith Lyon reports that Danny Munnerley makes the point that the C in SOOC stands for Community rather than Course. A SOOC is a variant of MOOC, with the S standing for 'Small' (see slide 7 of this presentation). I've seen this sentiment a lot. And as Lyons writes, a few days earlier, Susan Blum wrote: "If our ultimate goal is to educate human beings, then we must focus not only on knowledge and information, discipline and surveillance as measured by tests, but also on non-academic pleasures, motivations, skills, and the full array of human engagement that sustains attention and meaning." Well I agree, but I would say this: courses have start ad end dates, and communities don't. So if your thing has a start and end date, it's a course. It may foster and support community, but it's something different.