In yesterday’s post I described where I (and many others) see the LMS market heading in terms of interoperability. At the same time, the LMS does a very poor job at providing a lot of the learning technologies desired by faculty and students. There is no way that a monolithic LMS can keep up with […]
MOOC
LMS and Open: The false binary is based on past, not future markets
D’Arcy Norman has an excellent blog post up titled “On the false binary of LMS vs. Open” that captures a false framing issue. We’re pushed into a false binary position – either you’re on the side of the evil LMS, working to destroy all that is beautiful and good, or you’re on the side of openness, […]
Coursera shifts focus from ‘impact on learners’ to ‘reach of universities’
Richard Levin, the new CEO of Coursera, is getting quite clear about the new goals for the company. At first glance the changes might seem semantic in nature, but I believe the semantics are revealing. Consider this interview with the Washington Post that was published today in the Washington Post [emphasis added in both cases below]: Richard […]
A response to new NCES report on distance education
By Phil Hill and Russ Poulin, cross-posted to WCET blog Last week the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released a new report analyzing the new IPEDS data on distance education. The report, titled Enrollment in Distance Education Courses, by State: Fall 2012, is a welcome addition to those interested in analyzing and understanding the state […]
Learner-Centered Analytics: Example from UW La Crosse MOOC research
Last week I wrote a post What Harvard and MIT could learn from the University of Phoenix about analytics. As a recap, my argument was: Beyond data aggregated over the entire course, the Harvard and MIT edX data provides no insight into learner patterns of behavior over time. Did the discussion forum posts increase or decrease over time, […]
Why Unizin is a Threat to edX
In the week since we published our Unizin exposé, there has been nary a peep from the group to us, or apparently to the traditional news outlets either. When we ran the piece, we emailed Indiana University CIO Brad Wheeler to request comment or corrections. We have not heard back from him yet. Brad, if […]
Partial Transcript: Richard Levin (new Coursera CEO) on Charlie Rose
I have written two posts recently about Coursera’s appointment of the former president of Yale as the company’s new CEO, with the implicit argument that this move represents a watershed moment for commercial MOOCs. In particular, Coursera seems likely to become the third generation of Richard Levin’s dream, following AllLearn and Open Yale Courses. I’ve […]