The Inside Story: Campus Decision Making in the Wake of the Latest MOOC Tsunami

Over the past year, Duke University faculty, staff, and executive leadership were compelled to make a host of critical decisions related to the opportunities and challenges posed by the current wave of massive open online courses (MOOCs). The lack of available empirical research regarding MOOCs played a significant role in that decision-making process. In this position paper, the author examines the types of choices that universities are confronted with as they wrestle with their own identities in the face of new and disruptive forces. The author also describes the special effort being made by Duke to collect and analyze data with a view toward advancing the assessment of online education more broadly. She shares and discusses the University's preliminary findings with regard to instructor workload as well as student demographics, motivations, and levels of engagement, all based on data derived from the University's first MOOC. Finally, readers are provided with a summary of the types of decisions that administrators, faculty, and staff are likely to face in crafting an institutional response to the brave new world of online education and MOOCs.