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MOOCs more popular during the pandemic

A woman and a man holds a few brochures. Photo
Charlotte Leire and Kes McCormick are responsible for the MOOCs produced at IIIEE. Photo: Jan Olsson

The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, IIIEE, is taking the lead on open, month-long online courses, known as MOOCs. The investment in MOOCs has been quite a success. In recent years, every sixth student has stated that the online courses influenced them to apply for one of the IIIEE’s traditional courses or programmes.

That MOOCs attract students to study programmes is only one of several positive aspects. The opportunity to collaborate with various societal stakeholders is another. For several years, the IIIEE has collaborated with international organisations to develop course material for the MOOCs. Collaborations have involved the United Nations, the World Wide Fund for Nature and universities in other countries, among others.

The next step could be to produce online courses together with companies. One global giant has already been in touch.

‟This company contacted Coursera, the platform which hosts our MOOCs, and Coursera contacted us. The company wants to produce an online course for its employees together with us”, says Charlotte Leire, who is responsible for the IIIEE’s massive open online courses (MOOCs) together with Kes McCormick.

A man and a woman standing still on a staircase. Photo
Kes McCormick and Charlotte Leire. Photo: Jan Olsson

Higher education and teaching are undergoing a paradigm shift in which development is increasingly happening online. And this change is rapid, accelerated by the pandemic. In 2012, Stanford University launched Coursera as a platform for online university courses; since then, the platform has grown to become the world’s largest purveyor of education.

‟With the pandemic, the number of visitors to our MOOCs more than doubled and just over three times as many students complete the courses as before the pandemic”, says Charlotte Leire.

A complement to traditional teaching

The IIIEE does not see traditional teaching and massive open online courses as two opposite poles in competition with each other. On the contrary, the MOOCs are a complement that can contribute to traditional teaching. For example, videos included in a MOOC can be used in the classroom. Currently, the videos on Coursera are automatically translated into seven or eight languages.

‟This opens up unimagined opportunities. Just imagine when everyone can benefit from online teaching regardless of which language they master”, says Kes McCormick.

A way of reaching out

At the IIIEE, the MOOCs are more than just teaching. They are a way of influencing, of reaching out to hundreds of thousands of people and making the Institute known, while showing what it can contribute on sustainability issues. The IIIEE has identified three categories of applicants to the MOOCs: students, professionals wishing to develop their skills or change careers, and the interested general public.

‟Regardless of the target group, only a small proportion of them complete a whole MOOC. But our impact can be equally important on those who don’t complete the courses as on those who do”, says Kes McCormick, continuing:

‟Nowadays, impact and outreach can determine whether a researcher gets EU funding to finance a project, for example. MOOCs are a fantastic way of reaching out worldwide.”

Students have been critical

From the students’ side, there has been some criticism of massive open online courses. The criticism mainly focused on the risk that traditional campus teaching would be deprived if its funding is redirected to finance online courses. A reasonable reaction, but not a logical one, according to Kes McCormick.

‟The vast majority of the money to develop the MOOCs comes from research grants and external funding bodies, not from the traditional education budget”, he says.

"Embrace the MOOCs"

Swedish universities, including Lund University, should work strategically on MOOCs and embrace them in a completely different way than they currently do, thinks Kes McCormick. Not least because he considers the online courses as a given element of lifelong learning. Unless you have a strategy in place, there is a high risk of being overtaken by other universities such as Stanford, Melbourne and MIT, which are in a league of their own in terms of online courses as compared to Swedish universities, according to Kes McCormick.  

‟Educational possibilities online are enormous and we have barely scraped the surface. Universities that don’t keep up will miss out on a gigantic opportunity”, he says.

 

MOOCs at IIIEE

The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics, IIIEE, launched its first MOOC in January 2015. Since then, the range has extended to four courses and this year will see the launch of at least one new MOOC. Altogether, they have had around 797 000 visitors on Coursera and around 171 000 people registered. Last autumn, one of the MOOCs, Sustainable Cities, was ranked among the 250 best online courses worldwide.

The IIIEE’s MOOCs are five weeks long with five hours of study per week. They are free of charge, except for students who wish to have a certificate of completion for their MOOC – which entails a charge of USD 49. No MOOCs offered by Swedish universities enable students to earn credits.

Coursera is a platform for MOOCs produced by universities and large companies. The range of MOOCs includes three to six-month-long online courses produced by employers such as Facebook and Google.

Lund University's webpage for MOOCs.

cover photo

About LUM

The first edition of Lund University Magazine – LUM – was published 1968. Today, the magazine reaches all employees and also people outside the university. The magazine is published six times per year. Editor Jan Olsson.

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Jan Olsson


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Minna Wallén-Widung

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