In order to get a feel for the media interest and stance on MOOCs, here is a sample of headlines from 2012 and 2013:
- The MOOC Revolution: How To Earn An Elite MBA For Free (Schmitt 2013)
- Revolution Hits the Universities (Friedman 2013)
- Will MOOCs Massively Disrupt Higher Education? (Booker 2013)
- How Coursera, a free online education service, will school us all (Kamenetz 2012)
- What MOOCs Will Really Kill Is The Research University (Worstall 2013)
- Embrace Moocs or face decline, warns v-c (Parr 2013)
- MOOCs: End of higher ed as we know it? (Blackenhorn 2012)
- Higher-ed courses with massive enrollments: A revolution starts (Idea 2012)
Writing in early 2014, these headlines already seem dated. Try substituting OER for MOOCs in any of these articles and although the same claims might be made, it becomes apparent that such hyperbolic pieces would not be written about OERs. Often the articles were little more than publicity pieces for the MOOC companies involved, with no critical evaluation of the projected claims. From the open education perspective, the question is why would one branch of open education attract so much excitement, while another one does not?
Education Is Broken
I would contend that the reason MOOCs attracted so much attention – and so little critical evaluation – is because they slotted
