MOOCs, these ideological differences may not have much of an impact – a Coursera MOOC does not feel radically distinct from an EdX one. As we have seen, though, they may have longer-term implications on the directions that MOOCs take.
The initial MOOCs were largely experimental, explicitly designed to take advantage of the possibilities that being open and networked offered. Openness was thus a key component in their design. As MOOCs became associated more with institutions, they acquired what we might term a ‘brand burden’. If MOOCs are to be seen as a global shop window, then their identity becomes closer to that of broadcast rather than network, with high-value production quality. Any failure of a MOOC can lead to considerable negative publicity for the institution, as the example of the Georgia Tech Coursera offering on Fundamentals of Online Education demonstrated (Kolowich 2013c). This course had problems with students using Google Docs to register and had to be suspended, mainly as a result of the scale of users. This shift from acceptable experimentation to part of the institution’s communications policy may have benefits in terms of sustainability, as MOOCs can be costed relative to the marketing benefit they gain, which is a model understood by universities. It may however have some negatives such as:
- MOOCs become prohibitively expensive – A good MOOC requires such high-end production that it is not economically viable given the low return.
- Only elite institutions offer MOOCs – Given the expense, only those institutions who have the money or the skills to produce broadcast-quality content will provide them.
- MOOCs become pedagogically conservative – Part of the problem with the Georgia Tech course was that
