Dive Brief:
- Two new books on the subject of massive open online courses are out now: Jonathan Haber’s “MOOCs,” published by M.I.T. Press, and “MOOC U: Who Is Getting the Most Out of Online Education and Why,” by Jeffrey J. Selingo, published by Simon & Schuster.
- “MOOCs” is a primer on the brief history of the online courses, and it tracks the author’s own experience of taking MOOCs to earn the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, the New York Times reports.
- “MOOC U” argues that MOOCs haven’t lived up to their hype of expanding college access for all. Instead, the open online courses are typically reaching professionals who already have a degree and a full-time job.
Dive Insight:
Haber blogged about his MOOC-taking experiences for the Degree of Freedom project. Selingo takes the position that MOOCs becoming a professional development tool, instead of providing college to the poorest villagers at the farthest corners of the globe, shouldn’t be a troubling development. Selingo wrote in a column for the New York Times last week that data collected from more than 24 MOOCs taught through Coursera showed that 80% of the students in Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa already had a college degree.