Remote control

There have always been people who offer to write your essays or assignments for you at a price. It's inevitable that such services will now thrive on line and it's no surprise to read in Inside Higher Ed this week an article called Paying for an A. It highlights web services like We take your classes that offer to do your online courses for you while you concentrate on more interesting activities.

In the past such services offered to write a single assignment for you whereas now they can take the whole course. It's not cheap and is probably not an option for the vast majority of students but with so many online courses available today there must be plenty where identity checks are less stringent than they should be. Instead of being outraged and deciding that online education is wide open for cheats we should maybe look a little deeper at this type of scam and what it really says about education.

If you can let someone else do the course for you then the provider has definitely got serious quality issues to deal with. The article in Inside Higher Ed gives examples of colleges who have quite rigorous security checks on online students to ensure that the right person is answering the questions. Random questions, video sessions, bank-style personal security log-ins and biometrics may all feature in online learning before long. However we also have to look at the way many online courses are designed. Courses that are based on the transfer of information and are heavily content-based tend to have examination forms that lend themselves to cheating. The greater the interaction between teacher and student and between students the harder it gets to cheat like this. According to Kyle Johnson, an independent higher ed consultant:

“What kind of experience are we providing for students if someone is able to take an entire class for a student and we never figure it out from the interaction? At a pedagogical level, that’s my concern. Are we really just dumping information at them so someone can come in and take a couple of quizzes and they’re done?”

Two conclusions from this case then. We need to move from linear, content-based courses to collaborative, task-based courses where assessment comes from successful completion of projects and where networking and dialogue make cheating extremely difficult. We also need to find better ways of checking identity online and maybe more complex log-ins as described in the article may be part of the solution.

Gonna sit right down and write myself a letter

We probably write more today than ever before but one of the problems of today's non-stop flow of communication is that it tends to be immediate, spontaneous and transitory. There may be many great thoughts in there but they are drowned in a sea of trivia. One art that seems to have all but died is that of letter-writing. The letters of great writers, politicians and thinkers are still published and studied as literary works but this element will be missing when future generations study our times. Who will publish an author's collected tweets or selected Facebook updates? The question of how to store such communication for the future has not been resolved.

I was intrigued therefore to read an article in Edudemic: Lettrs Encourages Thoughtful Digital Writing And A Slower Communications Movement. A new service called lettrs enables you to start storing and writing real letters again. As you can see in the film below, the aim of lettrs is to encourage more lengthy and meaningful writing and combining the analogue world of the letter with the benefits of digital storage and flexibility. One function is the ability to scan and upload your favourite letters from the past that may be stored in a shoebox or drawer at home. These can be uploaded to your virtual shoebox on lettrs where they can be stored in privacy or you can share them with friends or even make them publically available on your virtual fridge.

There is already a large number of public letters out there and you can reply to them and start a discussion or simply use them as models for your own letters. Some people have shared letters from family members that go back over 100 years and can be fascinating reading. Another function is the ability to write letters to loved ones that are stored and delivered at a future date, even in years from now. This all assumes of course that lettrs is a service that will survive in the long term and that is probably the weakness in the concept since we have seen many social media services disappear overnight in the last few years.

The Edudemic article focuses on how schools can use lettrs to revive the art of letter-writing in a meaningful way. Schools all over the world are invited to participate in the revival of this important but threatened art.

"The pilot was very well received by the school but unusually popular with the students who were exposed to the timeless need and craft of letter writing, even in their digitally enabled world. A larger program is being launched at the school with a “letters to veterans” campaign this Fall.

lettrs also plans a larger campaign to “save letters” at schools across the country as part of its slower communications movement, encouraging kids to think about what they write, and take the time to impact the life of another person through the power, craft, and timeless tradition of a letter.

People from 60 different countries have signed up on lettrs to bring letters back, just a little differently. Interested schools can contact info@lettrs.com to discuss a correspondence campaign for students grades 6-12."

Don't shoot the piano-player

  by  shakakahnevan

There's a steady stream of headlines about cheating in education. It's mostly cases of plagiarism and an underlying tone in many of the reports is that this is rising due to the use of computers in schools and universities. We bemoan today's cut-and-paste culture and many are increasingly sceptical of online examination. It's easy to blame technology for the increase in plagiarism but you seldom read about the technology that detects the cheaters. Is plagiarism really on the rise or are we getting better at discovering it?

Back in the good old days when I went to university I suspect that cheating was just as frequent, if not more so. Today a teacher can use anti-plagiarism software to check a student essay but in the past the teacher had to be very sharp to detect any signs of cheating. A clever student could certainly cut and paste from old essays and more obscure journal articles and run very little risk of being detected.

We regularly read about politicians, business people, celebrities and sports stars who cheat and cut corners to win the big deals and honours. Therefore the idea that education would be any different is absurd. If there are material rewards at stake then some people will be tempted to cheat. The greater the rewards the greater the temptation. It's not the net that causes people to cheat, we've been good at that for centuries.

Enter the LOOC

  by  n0nick

The various forms of more or less free and open education that are uncomforatbly arranged under the term MOOC are constantly evolving and twisting into new forms. I have previously noted the need to adopt a new terminology for the different educational models that are emerging since the term MOOC does not fit all of them. In the past couple of weeks a few new interesting developments have taken place adding new flavours to the mix.

First, Lisa M. Lane has announced that she no longer wishes her open courses to be considered as MOOCs since the term has becomne so misused and misunderstood - see her blog post You Say MOOC, We Don’t (Anymore). Her open online class, Program for online teaching, is a course with a set syllabus and schedule and not an arena for experienced MOOCers or researchers interested in the MOOC phenomenon. It's not even massive and participation is limited.

"We are just an online class. If you’d like to join us, read the textbook, follow the syllabus, and post accordingly, you are heartily welcome. If you want to use us as a venue for your creative development as a networked individual and eschew the class structure and intention, I’d prefer you not join us in the class and I’ll happily interact with you in my networks (because I am a networked individual also and I love your ideas)."

Another development in a similar vein is reported by Inside Higher Ed, MOOCs' Little Brother. The University of Maine at Presque Isle have launched an interesting new twist to the MOOC formula in the shape of a LOOC (Little Open Online Course). The concept is called the UMPI OpenU Project and involves allowing a linited number of non-paying online students to participate in the university's regular courses. The registered students and non-paying students work through the course together and all receive the full attention of the tutors. The difference is that the non-paying students get no academic credits at the end. However they can decide to register for the course during a limited period and become eligible for credits. If not they can still qualify for credit hours of prior learning.

As with Lane's course, participation is restricted (2-7 non-paying students per course) and the course is a far cry from the original network-based MOOCs. The intention is to let students try out a course in the hope that they will register as "real" students later on, either during the free course or afterwards. Only by registering can you convert your course into the hard currency of academic credits. The initiative is primarily aimed at students in the region and there are no ambitions to go global or massive.

With new variations on the theme appearing almost weekly I suspect it won't be too many days before I write again about MOOCs. But please let's find some new terminology, preferably not in the form of more acronyms.

Simulation for teachers

Iavante operating theatre. CC BY-SA Alastair Creelman

As part of the EFQUEL Innovation Forum we visited Iavante, an extremely impressive simulation centre for training medical staff and students in emergency situations. The centre had clinics, operating theatres, treatment rooms and waiting rooms where students and hospital staff could realistically practice realistic emergency situations with the help of sophisticated computer controlled dummies and real life actors. They even had a street where car accident scenarios could be re-enacted as well as a mock living room for emergency treatment in the home. All these rooms had cameras for filming the simulation from all angles for later analysis. This type of facility is of course very expensive but this type of training can save real lives later since the staff will be able to make mistakes in the simulation and get the chance to improve through practice and analysis.

Teachers are not involved in such life and death situations but it struck me that simulation training could save a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering in the classroom. Student teachers are often thrown in at the deep end and find themselves in front of classes of pupils who do not react in the ideal way no matter how pedagogically sound the student’s lesson plan may be. Students seldom get the chance to work out strategies for dealing with difficult classroom situations. The first experience is when it’s for real and of course there is a high risk that the situation will not be dealt with in a professional way. This can easily lead to students losing confidence in themselves and sometimes to dropping out of the course completely.

That’s why I was particularly interested in another session at the conference from a project called SimAULA. They have produced a computer simulation for trainee teachers to help them deal with difficult classroom situations. The simulation uses avatars in different types of classroom. The teacher can choose different classroom layouts to suit different pedagogical approaches and can plan the lesson using a wide variety of variables. The classes react in unpredictable ways and the students can try different tactics to deal with the situations that occur.

"SimAULA will setup a virtual practicum in the form of a three-dimensional, online world adapted in the context of teaching-learning in school. Both active teachers and teachers-to be will interact with avatars, develop lesson plans, and teach in the virtual classrooms. In order to provide interesting and effective learning activities, this project will focus on the pedagogical side based on the knowledge of teachers and pedagogic and psychology experts to define the behaviour model of the virtual students and create simulations and situations that are both pedagogically and educational sound."

A simulation like this not only gives students the chance to test different strategies but also plenty of scope for group discussion and reflection with the teacher afterwards. Computer simulation in teacher training offers the chance for students to make mistakes and learn without the stress of interacting with real classes. SimAULA show what can be done in this field and I'm sure more advanced and sophisticated simulations for teachers are on their way.

Quotes from EFQUEL Innovation Forum

Granada CC BY-SA Alastair Creelman

It's always hard to sum up a conference full of meetings, presentations, discussions and impressions. As one of the organizers of last week's EFQUEL Innovation Forum in Granada I was not always able to concentrate on all the sessions but I did manage to pick up a nice selection of quotes from our main speakers. Here are my favourites in no particular order:

“You can’t nail jelly to the wall”
Rory McGreal (Athabasca University) on the difficulties of defining the constantly shifting field of open education. 

“Most intellectual property is neither intellectual nor property”
Rory McGreal

"In the near future most students at university will be lifelong learners rather than traditional young students"
Tony Bates

"You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs"
Tony Bates on the future of higher education

"Traditional universities that don't recognise the move towards disaggregation will/might go the way of Kodak"
Rory McGreal

"Effective elearning means accepting loss of control"
Stephan Atsou

"Students coming out of high school aren't good at online learning"
Tomy Bates

"Resources are not courses. Courses are a pedagogical process"
Graham Attwell

"Learning environments have moved out of the educational establishment"
Graham Attwell

Peer reviewed teaching

  by  AJC1

In a discussion at the EFQUEL Innovation Forum in Granada this week we talked about the difficulties of creating a sharing culture in education. Teachers are traditionally expected to be self-sufficient; creating their own courses, managing their classes and writing their own course material. The idea of sharing your material with other teachers is still viewed with suspicion and sometimes even hostility. Letting other teachers and students see your material or watch your lessons and then provide feedback is the exception rather than the rule.

Let’s contrast this private and closed practice with established academic research practice. Research is constantly subjected to peer review and must be thoroughly referenced and justified. Once published you can expect critical review and debate around your conclusions. Isn’t it strange that the rules for research are not applied in the equally academic discipline of teaching? Why are learning resources hidden away on teachers’ hard drives or in desk drawers rather than being made accessible and subject to peer review and open for reuse?

The arguments for opening up educational and making resources open and freely available should focus on enabling a peer review system for teaching and learning. If courses are more open then students will be able to interact with other experts and lessen the dependency on one teacher whose view will inevitably be limited. If material is open it is reviewed and rated by students and teachers. The best material will be recommended, enhanced and reused. Poor material will often get feedback for improvement or at worst be ignored. The same goes for recorded lectures. We create a dynamic quality assurance system built around open discussion. Other more academic quality criteria can of course also be applied to the process but the principle is that openness can lead to higher quality.

Opening up our teaching for review and criticism is not a revolutionary idea. It is simply applying the rigour of research review to the field of teaching which for too long has been allowed to hide from public view. If we want to improve the quality of education, classroom or online, then we must dare to share.

Computers replace instructors, not teachers

CC BY-NC Some rights reserved by btobetun

"Teachers who can be replaced by computers deserve to be." This often quoted statement leads into an excellent article by Tony Bates, My summer paranoia: computers will replace teachers in higher education. The present expansion of content-based MOOCs from EdX, Coursera and co point to an increasing automation of course delivery and even assessment. This leads some people to draw the conclusion that the teacher's role is threatened and others see great opportunities for cost-cutting in higher education.

However Bates points out an essential distinction between instruction/lecturing and teaching. The delivery of information in the form of lectures can easily be recorded and offered on the net. Tests based on checking knowledge of facts can also be automated very effectively and you can then offer a fully online automated course. However the missing ingredient is actual teaching; inspiring, guiding, giving feedback, advising, providing context and all the other less tangible skills that lead to real learning.

"It is very hard to replicate the complexity of a skilled teacher who has to deal with many different variables and factors in real time. It is not just about processing speed and data management, but also about building relationships with students, making intuitive judgments, and being able to handle qualitative issues such as beliefs, values, and the personal feelings of students. Computers are not good at this."

If education was really only about learning and remembering information then we can easily automate it and offer it to the world on demand. That's what's happening today with the growth of online courses. That can work for self-motivated learners with good study skills but does not work for the majority who need guidance, motivation and assistance. That's where teaching comes in and these are not skills that will be automated any time soon. The teacher's role is more important than ever as long as we move away from confusing teaching with lecturing. The internet does not replace the teacher but offers teachers a chance to teach students in new ways. As usual it is not a case of either ... or ... but using computers wisely to enhance learning.

Rethinking assessment

I'm heading down to Granada in Spain next week to attend the EFQUEL Innovation Forum, which I'm also involved in organising. I'm looking forward especially to hosting a session on Thursday afternoon (6 Sept) entitled Rethinking Educational Assessment which you are welcome to join as a web conference via Adobe Connect.

The widespread use of open education today with all the flavours of MOOC as well as many informal learning arenas is changing our conceptions of education. The use of open educational resources and collaborative learning tools offer us the chance to escape from the restrictions of the traditional classroom and move the focus from content delivery to context creation. New educational models demand a rethink of how we assess learning. In a content delivery model assessment is mostly based on processing that content and knowledge acquisition can be relatively easily tested.

However employers are often more interested in soft skills than hard qualifications. The key employability factors are teamwork, initiative, problem solving and engagement and if you can show that you have these skills they will often trump qualifications (though obviously qualifications are still necessary). Is it possible to assess these soft skills and how can you do so? How can we move assessment and examination from showing what you know to how well you can do things? One recent development in this direction is the use of open badges as described here several times in the past year or so. Badges can be awarded to people who show a clear mastery of a skill in the eyes of their peers as well as teachers or mentors. Is peer review the future of assessment and if so how can we provide quality assurance?

In the session I'll be joined by two authorities in this field: Preetha Ram from OpenStudy and Anka Mulder, president of the OpenCourseWare Consortium (read more). They'll be offering their ideas on alternative assessment and have three questions for everyone to consider before and during the session:

• Traditional educational institutions are very well placed to provide campus as well as online education. At the same time they have to find ways to monetize open online education to cover their expenses. Which are the business models they can develop? 
• Students as well as employers still rely heavily on formal certificates and diplomas provided by accredited institutions. In order to become successful, recognition of informal certificates by employers is essential. What can be done to encourage this? 
• Verification of a student’s identity is essential in assessment, notably for institutions that provide accredited diplomas. How can we make online assessment more reliable? 

See the recording of the webinar.

Education, but not as we know it

The market place for free online higher education has become rather crowded during the last 9 months or so. Established actors like Peer2Peer University and University of the People have been joined by heavyweights like Coursera and EdX with the clout of some of the world's most prestigious universities behind them. Throw in other players like Udacity, Saylor Foundation, Course Hero and Faculty project and you have a vast range of online learning available for free. Then there are numerous  "free-range" MOOCs run by comitted professors on the principles of collaborative, student-driven learning. Each of these actors has their own approach to learning, their own interpretation of concepts like free, open and learner-centred and are run on varying business models.

So just when you think the room is pretty crowded, in comes another major initiative to stir things up even more. Enter World Education University! Known to friends as WEU (We-you) they have an interesting new angle on providing free education to the world. The basic concept is familiar with content being pulled in from open sources as well as custom-made content from teachers belonging to estblished universities. Students can do a self-test of learning preferences and content can be adapted to suit different styles. Mentors are available to provide support but, as always, students are expected to do a lot of self-study and peer review of each other's work.

However one interesting feature is that WEU aims to offer real qualifications by teaming up with or acquiring existing colleges. They also aim to offer tailor-made degree programmes in association with companies of professional bodies to ensure that students get the skills they need for careers in those organisations.

The twist in the tail, as always, is how all this is financed. Obviously the founders are investing heavily and they are also attracting sponsorship from large companies too. But if the courses are free where's the revenue coming from? As ever on the net the answer is advertising. According to an article in Campus Technology, New Global University To Be Both Free and For-Profit, there are plans to allow advertising on the course site that will be adapted to the students' interests. The advertisers will be subsidising the students' education in return for the opportunity to advertise direct to their target group. Another avenue is making students available for marketing research and surveys. Students can, say, win points for tests on their course or responding to marketing surveys and then qualify for discounts and free merchandise. A third potential revenue stream is to encourage course material authors whereby their e-books can be published, marketed and sold by WEU with a revenue share scheme as incentive.

It's education, but not as we know it. Academics may be very sceptical about the commercial aspects of WEU but for millions of people around the world without any prospect of raising the money needed to go to a regular university this will be an enormous opportunity. The presence of a few adverts is a minor irritation if you can study for credible qualifications without debt. It's already certain that no matter how many universities are founded in the next few years they can never keep pace with the exploding demand for higher education. New avenues are needed. Watch this space.

Cut and paste

  by  Will Lion

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that many cases of plagiarism have been discovered on free, open courses run by Coursera: Dozens of Plagiarism Incidents Are Reported in Coursera's Free Online Courses. This is no real surprise since the nature of massive open online courses is freedom and flexibility and of course the opportunities for cheating would seem to be enormous. The puzzling point here is that these courses do not lead to university credits so what's the point of cheating?

However some students are cheating and one professor has already made a plea to curb plagiarism and there is talk of using plagiarism-detection software in the future (as is standard at many universities already). The main point of the Chronicle article is that the these cases have been discovered by other students through peer assessment rather than being left to the teachers to detect. Students have raised suspicions of plagiarism and taken them to the professors but instead of dishing out punishments many teachers see this as a teachable moment:

In an interview this week with The Chronicle, Mr. Rabkin, who is also an English professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, said he sees the plagiarism incidents as a "teachable moment." He said one student wrote him soon after he posted his letter and confessed to submitting a plagiarized essay, but the student said he had not realized that copying and pasting from other sources was wrong. The student asked that his essay be withdrawn and that he be disqualified from receiving a certificate, but Mr. Rabkin said he wrote to Coursera officials saying the student should be given a second chance.

Although there are cases of deliberate plagiarism I think most cases are due to a lack of awareness of what constitutes plagiarism and many cases could be avoided with some hands-on training. An excellent example of how to increase awareness of plagiarism is described in an article in Faculty Focus: An Assignment that Prevents Plagiarism. Here students were given a sample essay written by the teacher and fully referenced but which contained 10 examples of different types of plagiarism. The students' task was to spot the plagiarism and rewrite the essay correctly and finally adding their own referenced conclusion. By doing this excercise the students became more aware of what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. According to the study this type of work reduces plagiarism radically.

There are of course stern warnings against plagiarism in every syllabus and college regulations but the whole concept is still abstract and poorly defined in the minds of the students. Only by raising the issues in a practical manner as described above can students grasp what is allowed and develop a sensitivity for what is not acceptable. The fact that plagiarism has been discovered in a MOOC says nothing really about the nature of the course itself, simply that this is an issue that few students today have a clear grasp of.

The soft side of learning

  by  y-a-n

One of the common misconceptions about using technology in schools and universities is that it will motivate students more than using the traditional textbooks, whiteboards, papers and pencils. Giving everyone access to laptops, tablets, mobiles and a host of creative tools will lead to more highly motivated students and better test results. These factors can help to increase motivation and may lead to better results but only if other, more important factors are present. It's all about the hardware and the software of education.

I have just read a fine blog post by Bill Ferriter, Are kids really motivated by technology? despite many attempts to get students to use blogs, wikis and interactive video forums like VoiceThread they have never really caught the students' imaginations in the way he expected. They were simply not particularly impressed by the tools on offer. There's nothing wrong with the tools per se, but Bill realised that the actual choice of tool or technology was subordinate to other more abstract motivators.

"What students are really motivated by are opportunities to be social — to interact around challenging concepts in powerful conversations with their peers. They are motivated by issues connected to fairness and justice. They are motivated by the important people in their lives, by the opportunity to wrestle with the big ideas rolling around in their minds, and by the often-troubling changes they see happening in the world around them. 
Technology’s role in today’s classroom, then, isn’t to motivate. It’s to give students opportunities to efficiently and effectively participate in motivating activities built around the individuals and ideas that matter to them."

Students aren't really interested in the hardware of education. It really doesn't matter how much fantastic content you offer or how many cool tools you use. Content and technology are not motivators. The real motivators are the software of education: energy, enthusiasm, engaging discussion, commitment, feedback, support, group dynamics and clear objectives. If these soft factors are present then learning takes place whether it is online, in a classroom or a mixture. Software trumps hardware every time and that is the key point to understand before making more pointless comparisons between classroom and online learning. The arena and the content (classroom, LMS, social media, books etc) are of course important but not as much as we think. Great learning can occur in poor environments if the softer elements are in focus.

Shades of MOOC

  by  Alfredo Louro

There are many types of open online courses for large groups of participants that are labelled MOOCs. Most of them are indeed open, online and aimed at a mass following but their pedagogies differ. There's a big difference between the pioneer MOOCs of Downes, Siemens, Cormier, Couros etc, built around connections, dialogue, flexibility and collaboration, and the streamlined instructional MOOCs of Coursera, EdX and Udacity.

So I was glad to see Lisa Lane's blog post Three kinds of MOOCs which gives a good definition of three shades of MOOC: network-based, task-based and content-based. It's not a case of one being better than the other but a case of horses for courses. Different formats suit different learners with different objectives and motivations.

The network-based MOOCs of Downes and co are excellent for digitally highly literate and self-sufficient learners who know how to collaborate online and are at ease in different digital environments. These courses are complex and lack clear bullet-point objectives and guided study. Those who prefer clarity, structure and guidance will feel more at home in the more traditional and familiar format of the content-based MOOCs of Coursera and co. The task-based MOOCs will appeal to more practical learners.

There's no right answer here as Lisa sums up:

"So I’m rejecting both the Good vs Bad MOOC model, and the million-points-of-MOOC approach, and going for a triad."

Or maybe time to find new labels. Will 2013 see the MOOC morphing into other new concepts?

From creation to curation

Now that there is a wealth of open content available the focus has turned from content creation to curation, packaging and advanced search. A recognized weakness with OER is finding the right resources with some degree of quality assurance. So now there is a growing list of new tools that find the right resources and package them in convenient forms.

One example of this is Boundless. This compiles free e-textbooks from open educational resources. Boundless helps you replace your standard course textbook with an e-book of open content including texts, images, film, sound and animation. The resulting e-book can be accessed by laptop, tablet or mobile and is instantly available to all students. It can be used as a supplement to a printed course book or can simply replace the printed version. It's all free, at least in its present beta version but there are of course premium services such as SmartNotes.

As more and more solutions like this emerge the role of the textbook publishers becomes very insecure. The arguments for free online e-books are irresistible for students and highly attractive for cash-strapped educational authorities, many of whom are looking at the open textbook sector already. The key factor in this competition is quality assurance. How trustworthy is the material retrieved by services like Boundless? Is it equally well selected as the equivalent material in the printed textbook? The printed textbook has been written as a logical progression with clear developed themes whereas the digital version is a mix of completely independent modules. Quality in open e-books depends on effective tagging including parameters for subject matter, objectives, learning outcomes, age group, level and so on. As the meta data improves and resources are produced with more thought for reuse then solutions such as Boundless will become increasingly attractive.

Definitely worth investigating further.

Read a short review of Boundless on Edudemic: The Future Of Textbooks Is Free … And It’s Now Available.

Educational entrepreneurship

  by  brotherM

Higher education is becoming increasingly entrepreneurial, though not always in traditional terms of starting profitable companies. Many faculty members are trying out new methods, new pedagogies and rethinking their whole approach to education. Ideas must be developed, backers must be won over, arguments sharpened and the whole concept needs testing and quality assurance. Many great ideas never get developed because the people involved don't know how to get started. Universities need to be better at getting new ideas off the ground whether in the form of internal projects, collaboration with other institutions or real start-ups.

Now there's a course that looks at exactly these issues and it's an interesting addition to the wide range of free, open online courses available today - Ed Startup 101. The course will run from 24 August to 7 December and will be lead by David Wiley, Richard Culatta and Todd Manwarin. It will be open and free for all online but will also be offered for credits to students at Brigham Young University. Those not eligible for credits will be able to earn certification within the Open Badges infrastructure.

In response to the present wave of MOOCs offered by the major universities this one claims to be an "old style" MOOC, that is to say:

"... one that focuses more on building community and learning together socially than on watching video clips and answering multiple choice questions. Ed Startup is designed to acquaint educators, educational researchers, and others to the world of entrepreneurship and intrapeneurship, help you decide which one is right for you, and support you in the first steps of your journey. During the course you’ll learn directly with an incredible group of experts (people who have done it before and succeeded) as well as with peers (people who are passionate about making a change for the first time), and work toward transforming your own innovative idea – or another innovative idea established in the research – into a well-designed product or service that can improve the lives of teachers and learners."