Comments on: What do FutureLearn’s Terms and Conditions say about open content?

By: Cameron

Cameron — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 02:03:55 +0000

At an institutional level, commercial MOOCs only make sense from a purely marketing perspective (unless you have big U.S. philanthopic dollars propping up your project).
Most universities would be better off delivering low overhead MOOCs, off their own platforms, that are designed primarily around internal proirities (e.g. desirable first year prerequisites)
We could have doing this for the last 10 years but no one could make a good enough business case. The basics haven’t changed just the level of hype people are prepared to believe.

By: Hack Education Weekly News: Data Data Data

Hack Education Weekly News: Data Data Data — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 21:39:10 +0000

[…] The British MOOC initiative FutureLearn turned on its website this week, and you can almost taste the online learning rainbow. And some watchful eyes, not blinded by the colors of the new site, noted that the FutureLearn and Udacity Terms of Use are nearly identical. More on FutureLearn’s Terms via Lorna Campbell. […]

By: Liz Falconer

Liz Falconer — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 09:00:17 +0000

Mm, it seems to me that FutureLearn are in danger of looking like a rather cynical adaptation of what the open (in the widest sense of the word) movement is really about. I guess as they have the British Library, British Museum and British Council in the partnership too, it’s understandable that they are content-focussed. As someone who works in a mid-range ex-poly, it also smacks of elitism. It seems a shame to me that the original idea about MOOCs being open doesn’t extend to the partners in provision. Some are still more equal than others.

By: Lorna

Lorna — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 07:13:15 +0000

Hi Simon, yes, your right, FutureLearn seem to be quietly dropping the MOOC label. The only reference to MOOCs now seems to be on posts linked from the earlier incarnation of the site. While I can understand that there may be good reasons for this, it’s a shame that they also seem to be dropping the “open” aspect from their model. FutureLearn now seem to be offering “free” online courses, rather than “open” online courses, which isn’t quite the same thing! A case of throwing out the baby with the bath water perhaps?

By: Simon Rae

Simon Rae — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 21:48:36 +0000

A quick skim through the top level of the FutureLearn website (i.e. I couldn’t do the whole of the Terms & Conditions didn’t reveal anything that said that they would be providing MOOCs, only that they were planning ‘online learning experiences’, nothing about ‘open’.

Was I alone in thinking that the site’s fairly frequent references to MOOCs implied that that was the format they would be adhering to together with the associated conditions vis: massive, online and open? Seems not. (Memo to self: stop assuming the best in people and organisations.)

By: Lorna

Lorna — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 09:06:44 +0000

@Maggie A MOC MOOC?!

By: Maggie

Maggie — Thu, 06 Jun 2013 07:41:32 +0000

Does this make FutureLearn a MOC?

By: Lorna

Lorna — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:50:33 +0000

Hi Chris! Yes, you’re absolutely right. In fact it increasingly seems like the “open” in MOOCs is the antithesis of the “open” in OER. I just hope the latter “open” can outlast the former!

By: Lorna

Lorna — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:48:57 +0000

@Pat…..hmmmm…..

By: Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:08:27 +0000

Hi Lorna, nice write-up, and I followed David and Pat’s mauling on Twitter with interest. It’s taken me quite a while but it’s finally dawned on me that the Open in OER is completely unrelated to the Open in MOOC, and it almost seems disingenuous to link the two concepts now.