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Debate column
MOOCs and Credit Points:
At the beginning of
September, most of
us were caught by
surprise when the
school’s administration
characteristically gave a nod of approval to innovations in its
education practices, this time by puttingmassive open online video
courses (MOOCs) on the same shelf as in-class electives. This has
pulled SSE Riga in a debate in whichuniversities and experts, especially
in the US, ponder the future of uni education. For example,
Stanford was among the first Ivy League schools to offer MOOCs in
2011, while many other (the presigeous Amherst college) deem they
don’t live up to the recent hype.Ackwnoledging the benefits of online
education, the Debate Column asks the more controversial question
of whether ‘THW give credit points for MOOC courses’ is indeed a
the Slippery Slope of Online
Courses
Prop: It’s the future anyway, so we better
get used to it
Prepared by debate partners Rokas Narkus (Year 5) and Stanislav
Filatov (Year 5, one of the graduates who pushed this idea through
the administration)
Let us start the discussion about MOOCs starting
with the credit points system. At our school credit
points are given as official recognition that shows
one’s achievement in mastering the course. Usually the
achievement is proved by the exam, project work, series
of assignments or just attendance. In the case of MOOCs
all the students are required to upload the output of their
learning process (in the form of assignments, exams,
project works and certificates), so the achievement is seen
and proven.
One of the key concerns, perhaps, is cheating. There is
definitely apossibility of this; nevertheless, it is not bigger
than innormal elective courses. Moreover, chance that the
student will be tested once more at the end of the course,
reputation effects in a community of peer-learners and
student’s conscience furtherlimit the possibility of cheating.
different from achievement in any other elective course
and proven the absence of harms from MOOC credit
points, let’s look at their benefits. From students’ point of
view it gives the encouragement needed to go through the
course when it gets tough, especially for the beginners in
MOOCs. Furthermore, they also allow students to really
enlarge their diploma with some highly relevant skills that
wouldn’t be otherwise available to them from the SSER
elective selection. From the School’s perspective, university
is still in charge of the curriculum - it can choose for
which courses to grant the credit, how to monitor and
assess them. It can also see which courses are better for
the students. Another important aspect is the cost of running
MOOCs (which is close to zero), allowing school to
provide electives of greater quality for a lower price.
Moreover, MOOCs are a disruptive technology in the
sphere of education whose impact one can’t neglect, so
it is better that School learns how to gradually include it
into its curriculum. MOOCs make SSER more affordable
for students and hence, more competitive.
Note that in this debate we try not to mention benefits of
MOOCs themselves (which are vast!), and concentrate
only on Credit Points.
Having established why MOOCs achievement is not
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