Group Admins
Description
Session Description
The Distance Learning at Scale (DLAS) team at the University of Edinburgh has recently announced a launch of a new programme – MicroMasters in Business Analytics at the Business School. It will run with partnership with one of the largest MOOC providers, EdEx. It is a 30 credit course consisting of coursework, assessment and small independent research project. A student is expected to commit to approximately 200 hours taught and 100 independent research throughout its duration. The aim of the course is to reach more students online who are unable or do not wish to attend a campus-based university education. MicroMasters is a brand name of EdEx educational provision, said to be worth of 20-25% of a master’s degree. The title is therefore not considered to be part of University of Edinburgh academic award.
The course will be a key component of the University of Edinburgh’s overall Digital Education Ecosystem. This ecosystem is built to be self-supporting and mutually enhancing. All areas of the Ecosystem create and reuse digital education material and leverage central platforms, skills, capabilities and evolving best practice.
This is a case study poster that will examine MicroMaster’s features as understood within wider geopolitical context of current digital education debates surrounding provision of online learning in the Global South. A particular focus will be placed upon the course’s design and scalability. It will seek to uncover its beneficiaries as well as implications of the institution’s interest in reusability of the MicroMaster’s model by other schools at the university.
References
1) Czerniewicz, L. (2018) Unbundling and Rebundling Higher Education in an Age of Inequality [online] Available at: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/10/unbundling-and-rebundling-higher-education-in-an-age-of-inequality [Accessed Nov 2018]
2) Edwards, R. (1995) Different discourses, discourses of difference: Globalisation, distance education and open learning, Distance Education
3) Knox, J. (2016). Posthumanism and the Massive Open Online Course Contaminating the Subject of Global Education Routledge, New York
4) Laurillard, D., Kennedy, E. (2017) The potential of MOOCs for learning at scale in the Global South [online] Available at: https://www.researchcghe.org/perch/resources/publications/wp31.pdf [Accessed Nov 2018]
5) Liu, X., Liu, S., Lee, S., Magjuka, R. (2010) Cultural differences in online learning: international student perceptions Educational Technology and Society 13 [online] Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bbae/3159f0977afd5306adb89a1b0616611a9664.pdf [Accessed Nov 2018]
6) Mbembe, A. (2016) Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts & Humanities in Higher Education 15