Faculty often left out of college’s decisions to try MOOCs
As colleges scramble to offer so-called massive open online courses, or MOOC’s, faculty members have found themselves struggling to keep up with those plans and to make sure their views are heard.
A dozen colleges, including Duke University and the California Institute of Technology, announced partnerships with the MOOC-platform company Coursera in July, and 17 more signed up this month. In some of those cases, faculty members had little input in the fast-moving negotiations, which took place over the summer. Many professors are now asking questions about what free online courses mean for their institution’s future.
Meanwhile, other universities are taking a slower road, and are involving faculty leaders more closely as they consider whether to pursue MOOC’s.
