- With a qualified faculty member, the courses tend to be invaluable. This is doubly so when a professor is recognized as an expert in their field in a practice capacity as well.

- Lends itself to education in fields that are heavily reliant upon designing education, allowing students to take part in research, and navigating online learning technology. 

- A MOOC experience can be translated to be lecture and activity is incorporated. This maintains an element of the usual classroom environment for those who covet it. 

- Many students up to the graduate level have been exposed to MOOCs in some capacity.

- Increased opportunities for TA roles.

Strengths of MOOCs

- Difficulties preparing for a "large and undefined" group of learners. Engaging with a MOOC for the first time with such a scale of students is an uncertain prospect.

- MOOCs are costly to launch and many of the learners may not be contributing to revenue.

- MOOCs require an expansive network of university programs, offices, and staff.

- Marketing may be an additional cost.

- Schools that have not yet launched MOOCs may be seeking host platforms.

- Can limit faculty time to engage in other projects/research.

- Maintaining uniformity within a program/department with a MOOC integrated curriculum could be difficult when faculty has differing opinions about the efficacy of MOOCs.

Weaknesses of MOOCs

- Offering a MOOC can create visibility for a university as a leader in various fields.

- Faculty members teaching MOOCs can increase their audience, potential for exposure to outside opportunities, and demonstrate their value as an instructor.

- There is an opportunity for positive or negative media attention depending on the success of a MOOC

Opportunities with MOOCs: "Reputation"

- Ability for potential students to become familiar with lead faculty members and inform application decisions to degree programs based on their experience.


- Allows for non-degree focused students to gain essential skills for the workplace, personal development, etc (although this is not necessarily to be expected). Education within the university walls can be promoted, but education can also be expanded.


- Instructors could teach for a MOOC and include their videos as an aspect of an application for a teaching role.

Opportunities with MOOCs: "Recruitment"

- Data can be traced based on student involvement.


- The massive amount of students is an appealing sampling pool.


- Greater availability of research involving learning design/pedagogy and student outcomes. 


- Insight into the future of the intersection between big data and educational technology.


- Connections between learning and course design between universities.

Opportunities with MOOCs: "Research"

- Saturation of the MOOC market.

- Replication of courses.

- Decrease in public interest in MOOCs as a "hot topic" in education.

- Lack of enrollment for new MOOCs.

- Cannot gauge student effort to balance the delivery of the MOOC in kind.

- Negative reputation from negative reviews.

- Instructional designers teaching instructional design courses on a MOOC platform that they helped to develop may have more at stake in terms of reputation.

Threats to MOOC delivery 

- SWOT analysis
- Faculty vs. student perceptions

San Jose State University

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

MOOCs are often combined with traditional teaching methods to create different blended learning environments.

MOOCs in blended learning

Vanessa P. Dennen and Amit Chauhan.MOOCs FORUM.Sep 2013.17-21.http://doi.org/10.1089/mooc.2013.0008

Shall We MOOC? A SWOT Analysis at the Program Level


- Make room for student choice in MOOCs even if you must guide them in this choice. This can help with motivation.
- Workload should be carefully balanced between MOOC based and classroom content and this should be communicated in expectations to students.
- Learning outcomes should permeate the MOOC and classroom environment and be considered from the beginning. 
- Even if students are given a choice on a MOOC, having completion as a requirement can overcome motivational issues with completion. 


Recommendations for teachers implementing MOOCs in Blended Learning

Pros 
+ Student performance is the same or slightly better 
+ Students gained strong critical thinking skills - critiquing and analytical comments 
+ No negative impacts on any group/demographic 
+ Students engage with interactive online materials 

Cons 
- Students are still less satisfied with the blended format compared to face-to-face 
- Students feel less prepared for course materials 
- No feedback from MOOC instructors


 Pros & Cons of Integrating MOOCs in Traditional Classrooms

Given that the course materials are consistent, regardless of modality, with enough prior preparation, accreditation, and initial investment, a MOOC can be integrated into a course and provide results similar to both in-person lectures and blended courses involving the same MOOC.

Integrating MOOCs in STEM-based Courses

Here, a control group and experimental group were administered a pre and post test with regards to a course that the experimental group was to take in a blended learning environment and the control group in a traditional classroom environment. Based on a paired t-test for the pre-test, there was no significant difference between the prior knowledge of the groups. After the post test ANCOVA test, it was determined that there was a significant difference between the post test scores. The experimental score was higher.

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