In Colleges' Rush to Try MOOC's, Faculty Are Not Always in the Conversation - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education

http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/134692/

Last weekend on This Week in Tech (at TWiT.tv) the panel talked about more universities joining in the effort to create MOOCs, and their enthusiasm was, I felt, carelessly unbounded. People who seem to have concluded that MOOCs can already substitute for a more traditional college education might not be seeing things through. For an individual looking to learn a particular topic, MOOCs can be great. As a system, however, they have a way to go. Completion rates for many MOOCs are around 10% and it's unclear to me if that completion certificate carries the same kind of weight as a course on a college transcript. It's going to take a few years to see how MOOCs evolve, and I think the dose of skepticism from faculty such as those in this article will help balance out the enthusiasm. I don't want to see the MOOC concept go away, but I certainly welcome its steady evolution.