Online classes revolutionized education by opening classrooms up to people of all walks of life who may not have been able to afford to attend either due to cost, flexibility, or locale. Online courses have many free options which can be as useful as a traditional university course from a learning perspective. Lately though, they’ve dropped off the map and seemingly stagnated. Let’s address why and see what can be learned from the whole ordeal.
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs)
Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) were the catalyst for online classes becoming more mainstream. Before the advent of MOOCs like edX or Coursera, there was MIT OpenCourseWare. MIT OpenCourseWare was known for its quality of materials, but it was hard to prove to a prospective employer or person if you had completed the work for the course, but that was never its goal. The large MOOCs like edX and Coursera changed that with metrics for tracking progress and completion.
MOOCs made people aware of courses which were free from top universities and gave them a level of access that was normally gated by admissions and cost. Some MOOCs even featured certificates, and exams and grades which gave them even more credence. There were even sites with certificate programs or “degrees” based on these courses.
The Downfall of MOOCs
MOOCs were a victim of their own success unfortunately. Most of them were free, and many began offering other free courses without as much oversight. Free sites were laden with as many courses about aliens in history and similar as traditionally acceptable subjects. It became harder and harder to differentiate a legitimate class with one where the “professor” had no real credentials to be teaching.
MOOCs also lacked financial skin in the game as well as necessary accountability, so people dropped off when they got “done” with a course (see: this for more information about this point). Many people who signed up just ended up dropping when it either got too hard, or if it wasn’t that interesting. Others dropped because of time constraints because certain platforms tried to combine the best and worst of traditional education with an online delivery system and ended up with a platform which was artificially constrained.
I personally was guilty of this, I signed up for dozens of courses each “semester” and ended up dropping all but one at best due to time constraints and whether or not the class was interesting. Dropping a course like this had no repercussions. Another issue I ran into as they got more popular was a lack of accountability for instructors to create a syllabus or to list prerequisites. I signed up for several courses and ended up dropping because the instructor would mention some other course we should have completed, or a course which should be taken in conjunction. I gave up on the platforms because I wasn’t sure if signing up was a waste of time or not for any given class.
Accessibility
Accessibility was another factor which affected online classes. The fact they were accessible by virtually anyone unfortunately diminished their reputation. Pretty much anyone could make an account and bumble through the material as many times as it took to “pass” (which ranged from “watching every lecture” to completing certain kinds of tests). The accessibility made the material far more accessible but came at the cost of trust in the material being absorbed by a given course or platform without an accredited institution organizing it. Taking an online course meant less and less as the pool was diluted.
As these became a bit of a reputation booster, many sites with open submissions were buried by hopefuls creating courses on anything and everything. Online course platforms became almost an SEO tool before dropping out of the limelight. The accessibility combined with the barrier to entry was too low to stop the flood. Traditional courses evaded these issues almost entirely with the accreditation process and hard requirements for courses.
Barrier to Entry
Speaking of barrier to entry, by 2014 or so, there virtually was none. Certain platforms had originally limited themselves to partnerships with specific schools, but there quickly got to be a race to the bottom. Anything and everything got its own course on pretty much any open platform. Any restricted platform either got their approval process gummed up, or else lost out on niche material and fell to the wayside.
The barrier to entry was reduced to the point it brought the bar down for some platforms. Some platforms avoided it, but ironically lowering the barrier to entry for teachers raised the barrier to entry for platforms. There was a disconnect between the market and the platforms.
More and more modern platforms have become more restrictive and tried to raise the barrier to entry. Some platforms have cut off access to those not paying through an accredited institution to distance themselves from open offerings. Due to the barrier to entry getting so low, many educational companies have had to artificially inflate the barrier higher than expected to even attempt to compete.
Accountability
One point which traditional classes and online classes disagree on is the accountability aspect of a course. Some online courses don’t care if you don’t “attend” any lectures, but traditional courses will almost assuredly fail you if you don’t. Most online courses, except those with more traditional registration processes, are easy to just sign up new accounts and reattempt for a certificate of completion which diminishes the value. There is also the issue of rampant plagiarism on these platforms.
Online classes tend to have fewer resources devoted to them unless they are through traditional institutions which leads to less oversight and accountability for the entire class. This works to undermine the legitimacy of the course. Just look at Udemy or any other platform which holds itself as one of the top platforms where the only requirement to completion is sitting through every video. This isn’t a jab at Udemy, but since they are lumped in with online course programs aiming to replace traditional universities, they bring down the perception of accountability and quality even though they’re apples and oranges.
The Cathedral Vs. The Bazaar
Traditional education follows the cathedral rather than the bazaar for the basic model. There are institutions like ITT Technical Institute which did not follow the model, but they effectively went under for misrepresenting themselves as a traditional college. Most traditional education institutes follow the Cathedral model and aim for a standardization and accreditation which doesn’t always fit every student, but ensures a minimum baseline quality of instruction.
Online courses follow the bazaar model more often than not. This includes online courses from established institutions. I am yet to register for an online course which is not a complete mess compared to its traditional counterpart, even at the same institution. Traditional education has not caught up to how to really leverage an online platform and deliver the same quality without the traditional classroom.
One course required using a platform outside of the school’s norm which was basically nonfunctional, and had to be changed last minute midway in the semester because the dean threatened to fire the professor if they did not comply. Another course required certain privacy breaking behavior which I found unacceptable for the course, but naturally wasn’t informed of until I had paid and gotten past the full refund period. Both of these were through a legitimate, accredited institution. Even established schools struggle with their online offerings.
What Holds Back Online Classes?
Online classes are held back by the fact that most traditional education institutions do not know exactly how to approach them. They are the wild west of education in a system which is slow to adapt. Colleges adopted remote courses and mail courses early on, but have consistently struggled with online courses. The lack of oversight and accountability makes it hard to gauge the knowledge of a student. A traditional course may fail a student for not showing their work, but how does an online course do so without either becoming the digital extension of a traditional course or hemorrhaging resources for grading and content?
MOOCs and other online courses have faded from the media and the limelight for education, but online courses still have their uses. Online courses from traditional education facilities are counted as traditional courses, but the selection is often limited, and the quality of the course is much more susceptible to the quality of the professor than even traditional courses. A bad professor can make a traditional course hard, but a bad professor can make an online course impossible. Online courses from non-traditional sources have basically become an educational oddity.
Conclusion
Online courses have their place and can be great resources, especially for personal development, but they aren’t the traditional education killers we were promised. Some manage to replace traditional courses, but as a whole, online courses had their show in the limelight and failed. There may be hope in the future, but traditional educational institutions still hold the cards for career progression.