MOOCs, SPOCs and next generation Open Access Learning

Funding cuts and fee deregulation mean WA's public tertiary education sector is facing uncertain times.

Next month, Creative Coding, the University's first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) will be offered through UK-based FutureLearn. 

University of Melbourne has embraced the trend to free, online learning with a partnership with the US-based start-up Coursera. Angela Martinkus reports on how and why the University has moved so fast.

Monash recently offered its first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Creative Coding, as a collaborative venture through FutureLearn.

Lead academics Associate Professor Jon McCormack from the Faculty of Information Technology and Dr Mark Guglielmetti from the Faculty of Art Design & Architecture, worked with librarians and learning skills advisers and with staff from the Office of the Vice-Provost (Learning and Teaching). They developed learning objectives and guidelines for students around expectations and conduct in the MOOC.

Students will get a five-week grounding in trade relations between Australia and China as part of Curtin University’s second Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), due to begin 17 March.

Digital disruption has required quick and massive change at universities, according to Glyn Davis, vice-chancellor of the University of Melbourne.

THE federal government won't reveal what it discovered when it put online education under the microscope earlier this year.

They're big, mostly free, and have the potential to revolutionise education.

The rising popularity of "massive open online courses" (MOOCs) is a powerful force for change in higher education. Typically offered free online, the idea is for people – "massive" numbers of people – to have access to free higher education.

Some of the best universities in the world, such as Harvard, Princeton and MIT, are offering free online courses to anyone who is interested, regardless of where they live or how good their grades were at school.

HERO of Alexandria (AD10-AD70) was a great inventor. He created a vending machine that dispensed holy water at an Egyptian shrine. In exchange for dropping a coin in the slot, your pilgrimage was rewarded with a small splash of welcome moisture.

MOOCs are a disrupter to the 1000-year history of university education. The coin hasn't yet dropped to evidence whether vended learning will lead learners back to more conventional suppliers, or whether MOOCs will feed into whole new and alternative ways of teaching and credentialling.

Vended learning is already leading to pathways to high quality, entirely digital education and accelerating the rush to incorporating and combining place with technology, often called blended learning. It's offering true, low-cost, high-value experimentation in big data and new types of instant consumers-just as the vending machine did.

Gilly Salmon is pro vice-chancellor (learning transformations) at Swinburne University of Technology.