Are MOOCs Open Educational Resources? A literature review on history, definitions and typologies of OER and MOOCs

Christian M Stracke,Stephen Downes,Grainne Conole,Fabio Nascimbeni,Daniel Burgos

doi:10.5944/openpraxis.11.4.1010

Christian M Stracke, Stephen Downes + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.11.4.1010

Copy DOI

Abstract

Open Education gained more visibility as a result of the emergence of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This article discusses whether MOOCs should be considered as OER. Open Education and OER can be treated as two strands with different historical roots even though, in theory, OER are an aspect of Open Education. Different OER definitions and typologies are analyzed in relation to their dimensions and categorizations. Furthermore, the four conditions and two original categories of MOOCs are discussed, leading to a debate on their quality. It turns out that there are two perspectives on MOOCs: from an OER perspective, MOOCs as a product can be called OER. From an Open Education perspective, MOOCs are going beyond OER as enablers of Open Education and are understood as an innovative way of changing education. These perspectives are reflected by the OpenEd Quality Framework. The short answer to our leading question is: sometimes, and it depends on your perspective.

Highlights

The topic of Open Education has become increasingly complex in recent years
The first of a series intended to contribute to a better understanding of that complexity, this article considers whether Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) should be thought of as Open Educational Resources (OER)
Does the research and literature on the quality of MOOCs support the idea that the OpenEd Quality Framework could apply to them as well as to OER? This is what we examine

Summary

Introduction

The first of a series intended to contribute to a better understanding of that complexity, this article considers whether Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) should be thought of as Open Educational Resources (OER). The Recommendation focuses on five objectives: 1) building capacity of stakeholders to create access, use, adapt and redistribute OER; 2) developing supportive OER policy; 3) encouraging the development of inclusive and equitable quality OER; 4) nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; and 5) facilitating international cooperation on OER In this recommendation, OER are defined as “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium that may be composed of copyrightable materials released under an open license, materials not protected by copyright, materials for which copyright protection has expired, or a combination of the foregoing” (UNESCO, 2019). Some examples include the SPOC (Small Private Online Course), developed to meet the need for more personal contact in courses next to many other proposed combinations and acronym inventions leading to a rather diverse landscape of current MOOC practices and raising the overall quality of MOOCs (Daniel, 2012; Gaskell, & Mills, 2014; Reich, 2015; Stracke, 2019)

The Quality of MOOCs and OER

Conclusion and Outlook