More on MOOCs: evaluative research emerging from edX

A team from MIT and Harvard has just published an article in Research and Practice in Assessment, titled Studying Learning in the Worldwide Classroom: Research into edX’s First MOOC. I hope that plenty of people will read it, as it may help to move the sometimes unreasoned and unreasonable discussion (from both sides) of MOOCs onto a more considered level. Continue reading

The open source LMS battle hots up

A few years ago the debate at my university was between Sakai and Moodle – which was the better LMS (learning management system) and how/when should we transition to one of them? Researchers favoured Sakai (good for collaborative projects), while teaching staff liked Moodle (in case you’re wondering, it stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment). As it has turned out, Moodle won the day, but step forward to the current online environment and the battle is on again. It’s bigger, tougher, more complex and the stakes are higher than ever. Continue reading