U of Chicago: 3 Challenges Creating Massive Open Online Courses
MOOCs, or massive open online courses, are transforming online education by bringing top university professors to thousands of learners at once. Speaking at the recent Streaming Media East conference in New York City, Ifeanyi Okonma, streaming media administrator for the University of Chicago, explained the obstacles his team encountered creating their first MOOC.
"The challenges that we had with developing this first MOOC -- I guess, you guys can be wary of when you're putting yours together -- was first for a more natural look-and-feel to the MOOC, it was unscripted," Okonma explains. "That does lead to a little bit extra time in post-production when you're doing the editing."
Finding the time to create the MOOC was an issue.
"I assume that everyone doesn't have all the resources available to you that you want. We pretty much have a small team. We have about a five-person AV services team that supports the whole university, so in addition to our normal AV tasks and duties, we also were tasked with putting this MOOC together," Okonma said. "That was kind of difficult, trying to schedule a time around that."
And then there's the issue of where to do the filming.
"We didn't have a dedicated space," Okonma says. "This being our first MOOC, just trying to get the word out there, get people to see how valuable this could be to a university for promotion and branding, we needed to have a dedicated space and that's something we didn't have."
Okonma's team ended up having to schedule conference room time, which meant setting up and breaking down their equipment each time.
For more on how other colleges and universities are using online video, watch the discussion below.
How Video is Reinventing Education
Video in education has moved beyond simply capturing classes and letting students review online. Video is truly changing the way institutions are delivering education. Progressive institutions are delivering “Global Classrooms” where students—and even multiple professors—are located in classrooms around the globe. At the other extreme, institutions are delivering education to mass audiences through online video. Multiple business models are being developed, including charging for classes, providing them for free, and even offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Hear about the challenges and successes from those who are experimenting with these new business models.
Moderator: Andy Howard, Founder & Managing Director, Howard & Associates
Speaker: Neal Coffey, Manager, Video Production Unit, Syracuse University
Speaker: Ifeanyi Okonma, Streaming Media Administrator, University of Chicago
Speaker: Dan Lantz, Associate Director, Video Production, Fox School of Business
Speaker: Peter Schilling, Associate Vice President, Academic Innovation, Global Technology Services, New York University
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