Thread:General feedback and discussions on the proposed survey (5)

Hi Ben,

The idea is not to make formative or summative assessment a requirement for MOOC participation or indeed a feature of the MOOC pedagogy.

Presumably there are learners who enrol and participate in MOOCs because they are free and open. The concept of the OERu university is to scale up the for-credit option to learners who may choose to gain formal academic credit for a MOOC course. Typically the numbers of for-credit options are capped and normal student fees apply.

The OERu will be implementing an option for participants who would like to formerly acquire credentialisation after completion of the MOOC or at some date in the future - -we are aiming to provide pathways to for MOOC learning to be formerly recognised.

The idea is that the institutional costs of assessment will be recouped by the participating institutions on a cost recovery basis -- which will be far cheaper than full tuition fees. We estimate in New Zealand that costs of assessment would not be more than around 20% of the cost of full tuition.

The OERu partners have not planned the details for the assessment model yet -- but I expect we will integrate the experience of distance education providers who have been providing assessment and credential services at a distance for a long time. I suspect e-portfolios would also be useful in providing evidence of the learning process.

Any suggestions or ideas on how to improve the formulation of the relevant questions to convey what they are intended to mean?