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This blogpost is an adapted version of a previous blogpost<\/a> (in Dutch).<\/p>\n December 2019, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science has published its new strategic agenda for higher education: “Sustainable for the future<\/a>” (in Dutch). The previous agenda contained two ambitions on openness in education: in 2025 all teachers share their learning materials and in 2025 all institutions recognize each other’s MOOCs. In the current agenda only the first mentioned ambition remained. Even more: where the previous agenda contained the word “MOOC” 9x, the current agenda does not mention MOOC a single time. On the other hand, the current agenda has strong ambitions in realizing more flexibility in education. Availability of sufficient accessible MOOCs can help in realizing these ambitions, by making education and learning more time and place independant. My presumption is that the decreasing openness of MOOCs plays a role in the absence of MOOCs in the agenda. Decreasing openness of MOOCs is in any case what strikes me when I compare the possibilities offered by MOOCs that I took in 2012 with most of the MOOCs that I now want to take.<\/p>\n In order to find out what open opportunities MOOCs now offer to learners, I conducted a small study. Subsequently, I will go into more detail on which aspects of “open” I included, how the study was carried out, what the results were and what the consequences might be.<\/p>\n To realize adoption of OER, Cox and Trotter (2017) have formulated their OER Adoption Pyramid<\/strong>. In this pyramid, several factors influencing adoption of OER are identified. The first factor is Access<\/strong>, described as (p.156):<\/p>\n The first factor determining lecturers\u2019 or institutions\u2019 engagement with OER is access<\/em>. This refers to having access to the appropriate physical infrastructure and hardware \u2013 such as electricity, internet connectivity and computer devices \u2013 necessary for engaging with digitally-mediated OER. It is the factor that lecturers have the least control over, in that it tends to be determined by state resource capacity and provision (for electricity and connectivity) and institutional resource allocations (for computers).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This description of access presumes availability of OER that by definition meet the (5R<\/a>) requirements of openness. In the case of MOOCs, openness is looked at beyond the context of OER, thus not necessarily meeting the 5R requirements.\u00a0 This means that in the description of access also “sufficiently open access is provided for the goal the MOOC is needed” should be mentioned. Put in other words: when this factor is not met, adoption will not take place, whatever the other characteristics of the MOOC will be.<\/p>\n Ben Janssen pointed me to the difference between “access” and “accessibility”. In a blogpost<\/a> (in Dutch) he has elaborated on this. Inspired by a blog<\/a> of Rick Anderson, Ben distinguishes between three layers of access, where each higher layer can be reached when the lower layers are addressed:<\/p>\n In order to maximise the potential use of a MOOC by both instructors and learners, at least layers 1 and 2 should be addressed sufficiently. I have translated these two layers into the following three characteristics:<\/p>\n In my study, I am particularly interested in the openness of MOOCs for learners. For them, characteristics 1 and 2 are particularly important (layer 1). The availability of MOOCs that meet characteristics 1 and 2 of openness is particularly valuable in the context of the flexibility ambitions in the strategic agenda. Characteristic 3 (layer 2) will be of little importance to learners: he or she will in general not feel the need to apply the adaptation rights associated with an open license to the learning resources used. However, based on the results of the study, I will indicate why, in some cases, the open license may also be of interest to a learner.<\/p>\n For the study, I took a sample of 100 MOOCs. That sample was determined by the Top 100 courses of the Class Central<\/a> platform on 1 January 2020. According to Class Central these courses<\/a> are: “The highest rated online courses and MOOCs of all-time from top universities around the world. Based on thousands of reviews written by Class Central users.”<\/p>\n Some characteristics of this sample:<\/p>\n As can be seen, 85 courses are offered by the “big three”: Coursera, EdX and Futurelearn. In addition to individual courses, these three platforms also offer trajectories consisting of several courses with a common denominator. Access to these trajectories (with names such as MasterTrack Certificates, Degrees, MicroMasters, Microcredentials and programs) is not free of charge. They have therefore not been considered in this study.<\/p>\n All courses meet characteristic 1: Open access (accessible to anyone who wants to). This is what one can expect for “Massive” courses.<\/p>\n With regard to characteristic 2 (free access to the course), the following table provides an overview of the platforms included in the Top 100. The “Experiences” column contains additions that have been obtained, among other things, by taking a closer look at some of the courses listed in the Top 100.<\/p>\n\nCharacteristics of open<\/h2>\n
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Structure of the study<\/h2>\n
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Results<\/h2>\n