Serendipity35

There has been a backlash against MOOCs the past year as they have made inroads into higher education. I believe a lot of that is fear - fear by professors about lost jobs and fear by colleges of lost tuitions. Project that fear to the future and it is a fear about the end of universities and degrees being the dominant form of post-secondary education.

I agree with Stephen Downes when he says that, "You can almost feel the glee in this Chronicle article as it reports on the failure of a plan to offer credit via an $89 MOOC-related exam for a course that usually costs $1050."  Is The Chronicle looking for the anti-MOOC stories now?

MOOCs were meant to be free (that's part of the Open), so when you see a price on taking one, you want to know about the return on that investment. That particular course awards "credit" but that credit that isn't transferable. You would need to apply it to a degree program at the MOOC provider, Colorado State University-Global Campus. That sounds to me more like a marketing scheme than a MOOC.

The fact that no students applied for the course is the big message of the Chronicle article, but maybe the big message should be that this is not what MOOCs are meant to be and that is why it failed.