by David Glance, the Conversation
The fact that MOOCs have acted as a catalyst, threatening change to the tertiary education market is not necessarily because it will be MOOCs themselves that actually brings about dramatic change. The excitement about MOOCs is simply a reflection of the fact that we are at a tipping point of unsustainability in the current world order. MOOCs will be one of a range of events that will bring about change to an industry that has so far resisted the transformations happening to all other industries around it. This is outlined well by Sir Michael Barber in a report called “An Avalance is Coming” which describes the multiple threats to universities’ current monopoly on awarding degrees. The authors of the report detail a future in which there are different types of universities that offer a distinctive value through being elite, niche, hyperlocal or global. In all of this however, content is the least important part of the proposition.
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