Granting credit for massive open online courses (MOOCs)
caught the attention of legislators across the nation, with Florida passing a
bill that orders education officials to allow students to transfer credits from
MOOCs. The American Council on Education has even recommended that 12 specific
MOOCs be granted college credit, leaving the final decision to individual
institutions.
Unfortunately, the groundswell of interest has been met
with silence from students. Both Colorado State University-Global Campus and
University of Maryland University College are offering credit for passed MOOCs
and have yet to have one student take advantage of the offer.
The University of Texas at Arlington has found success by
offering the MOOC2Degree initiative from Academic Partnerships. The program
allows students to apply credit earned from a MOOC to a degree program at a
partner school.
UT Arlington joined the program to attract registered
nurses into its bachelor of science of nursing program. Of 342 students who
took the introductory MOOC, 8% completed the course for credit with 14 students
either enrolled into or applying for the school’s online nursing program in
January.
By taking the UT Arlington nursing MOOC, participants
gained confidence to enroll in the online program while earning three credits,
according to Beth Mancini, associate dean of the nursing college. In addition,
there was a real savings for the students who paid $43 for the proctored exam
instead of $771 for the traditional online course.
“There’s a hype cycle for anything new, and MOOCs were
the big new thing that everyone was talking about, Marie Cini, provost and
senior vice president for academic affairs of the University of Maryland
program, told University Business.
“I think we’re going to find out in the next year or two how MOOCs are going to
be applied to the educational horizon. It’s just like online learning—many
institutions will do some piece of it, but it’s not going to replace all of
higher education.”
