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In 2015 I converted my introductory astronomy course ASTR1001 into a set of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and released them for free to everyone in the world. They have been running ever since to rave reviews and have been taken by 400,000 plus students: more than the ANU has graduated in its entire history.
But the real surprise was when we offered a version of these MOOCs to our on-campus students. I hadn’t imagined that any on-campus student would want to take a purely online course. But, in fact, our enrolment increased eightfold, and the SELT evaluations were spectacular. Why? Partly because these online courses are self-paced and asynchronous i.e. students can watch the videos and do the homework to their own schedule. This is valuable to students who need to support themselves by working. It also means that we can offer these courses multiple times per year – including the winter/summer semesters; popular sessions for students who need to replace a failed unit or catch up on underloading.
Via Peter Mellow
