Recent technological advances in higher education such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and open-access scholarly publishing are strongly promoted by advocates for its potential to relieve problems resulting from the rising cost of higher education and increasing demands for a college-educated workforce. These “disruptive” innovations, however, have the strong potential to challenge the structure of the traditional higher education industry and spark significant structural changes.
In an analysis published by open-access journal SAGE Open, Richard Wellen compared the disruptive qualities of open-access journals and MOOCs. While open-access journals require the same publishing costs and processes as traditionally published scholarly journals, Wellen argues that MOOCs are a stronger disruptive force because it would cause a greater tension between the market and academic commons. “If the productivity agenda of disruptive innovation succeeds on the scale imagined by its [MOOC] proponents,” Wellen writes, “the academic autonomy of institutions and academic professionals will likely be curtailed as curriculum is shaped and defined by forces outside of the collegial process.”
MOOCs and other disruptive technologies are fascinating topics for Indiana University at Bloomington Associate Vice Provost and Registrar and AACRAO Technology Conference Director Mark McConahay. According to McConahay, MOOCs are not just more disruptive, but also unsustainable as currently implemented.
“Open-access journals comprise of a fairly fixed community of people who already believed in access to the good to be consumed," McConahay says. "In fact, their success as researchers rests upon the ability to publish and gain access to other, similar works. Thus, open-access journals are merely an extension of the current business model, and appear sustainable.
"On the other hand, MOOCs are quite different. Instructors work outside of the institutional environment to develop and offer courses in their academic disciplines for free," he says. "These instructors are rooted in their academic departments and this enables them to apply their expertise and knowledge to develop and deliver the MOOC course. However, no revenue is returned to their academic home and thus the paradigm appears to be an unsustainable process in the long run. Open access journals do not cannibalize the academic infrastructure. Conversely, fully realized MOOCs courses (for credit) as currently operated without revenue supporting the base academic institution, cannibalizes the academic infrastructure.”
As unsustainable and disruptive they are to higher education, McConahay believes that MOOCs are here to stay. The higher education industry must learn how to adapt to the disruptive questions that MOOCs pose to the higher education structure.
“I honestly think the cat is out of the bag," McConahay adds. "MOOCs are here to stay. This commodization of certain kinds of foundational knowledge and/or competency-based skills are here to stay. All of higher education must work together to find their niche in the new “credential” environment. I think this kind of “sifting” will occur in the next 10–20 years.”
Richard Wellen’s full article “Open Access, Megajournals, and MOOCs: On the Political Economy of Academic Unbundling” is available for download at Sage Open.
AACRAO’s 100th Annual Meeting in Denver will have sessions focusing on MOOCs and other disruptive technologies. For more information, visit our website.