Okay, friends in higher education. I am reaching out to you for a little help. As I am working on my capstone proposal, I need a term for standard online courses. My study surrounds MOOCs. I need to distinguish between MOOCs and "traditional" online courses. (As if online courses are traditional.) The literature isn't really helping. An instructional designer from Vanderbilt (see http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/2013/08/lessons-learned-from-vanderbilts-first-moocs/), reflecting on Vandy's first attempt with MOOCs, refers to "closed courses" and "traditional settings," but is referring to both the on-ground and online classrooms. A white paper published by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (available at http://agb.org/sites/agb.org/files/report_2013_MOOCs.pdf) refers to "traditional online learning" and "other forms of online education." Much of the literature I've read focuses strictly on MOOCs and does not attempt to make a distinction.
MOOCs, as most of us know, refer to "massive open online courses." The courses allow anyone to enroll with no fees, no participation requirements, and no prerequisites. Enrollment is not capped or limited (hence, "massive"). I need to differentiate between MOOCs and online courses that are commonly offered as part of a degree, with class size limitations, prerequisites, participation and completion requirements, and -- usually -- tuition. Would it be enough to call these simply "closed online courses"? The term "traditional" doesn't seem appropriate, given that we are talking about maybe 20 years in the scheme of thousands of years of higher education studies.
Thoughts? Suggestions? No pressure, but I'm trying to complete my revisions by Tuesday night. :) I've spent several hours reviewing literature again, and I'm still no closer to a term.
