The Conversation | 16 October 2012
The University of New South Wales’ massive open online courses (MOOCs) platform OpenLearning has signed on more than 1,000 students to a 12-week computer science and engineering course. But experts say its decision to offer private industry-focused courses, automated marking, and “wisdom of crowds approach” could limit uptake by major universities.
OpenLearning was built by UNSW graduates Richard Buckland and Adam Brimo, who call it “a combination of Facebook and Wikipedia for learning”.
The Australian company will be emulating Facebook and YouTube and taking on Coursera and Blackboard with a platform that allows students to earn points by “liking” or voting down discussion posts and get feedback on assignments through automated marking systems.
Phillip Dawson, lecturer in learning and teaching at Monash University said while peer learning was a positive thing, there were risks associated with becoming dependent on students engaging in peer collaborative learning online.
If the community dwindles and dies the enthusiastic students who can’t find someone to collaborate with become disenchanted. It comes down to the teacher’s skills at getting collaboration going and nurturing that community.
Dawson also said while automated assessment was suited to objective fact courses like computer science, it might not be applicable to humanities or other creative disciplines. He added that in these types of courses where right or wrong answers were less well-defined, “wisdom of crowds” learning could see the crowd all being wrong.
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UNSW launches MOOCs program