{"189731":{"#nid":"189731","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Suspends One of Its MOOCs","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELast weekend, Georgia Tech acted to suspend one of its free online courses, citing technical and quality issues. Administrators say the MOOC, or massively open online course, will be evaluated and possibly reopened at a future date.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe course, \u201cFundamentals of Online Education: Planning and Application,\u201d was offered through Coursera, one of the emerging distance education organizations that partners with universities to deliver free, non-credit academic courses on a global scale. More than 40,000 individuals registered for the course, which opened January 28. A few days later, Georgia Tech requested Coursera suspend the class pending further review.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cWe apologize to those students who have been inconvenienced by this decision, but we are resolute in providing an academic standard of quality that is consistent with Georgia Tech\u2019s reputation,\u201d Professional Education Dean Nelson Baker said. \u201cThis is true regardless of whether the student is paying tuition to receive classroom instruction in Atlanta or freely participating in one of our MOOCs anywhere one can access the Internet.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThese are today\u2019s grand experiments in higher education,\u201d he continued. \u201cWith any experiment, sometimes one has to press pause and reset, which is what we are doing. Leaders take risks to try new things, and we are leading.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIn \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/newsroom\/release.html?nid=140591\u0022\u003Esigning an agreement with Coursera last July\u003C\/a\u003E, Georgia Tech was one of the first universities in the nation to offer web-based courses online and create new opportunities for hands-on learning. To date, Tech has successfully launched four courses through Coursera, and another seven \u2014 on topics such as music, mathematics and engineering \u2014 are \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.coursera.org\/gatech\u0022\u003Eopen for enrollment\u003C\/a\u003E. Other courses are in early stages of development. Baker noted the process of learning how to deliver education to the world has been just as instructional for the providers.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cGeorgia Tech has more than 30 years of experience in online education, yet the nature and scale of MOOCs require a different approach to course and instructional design. A feature of the MOOC experience is the ability to continually engage in quality improvement, and the Institute is exploring how to improve that experience. When the course meets our expectations, it will be reopened,\u201d he said.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cUltimately, this was Georgia Tech\u2019s decision to suspend the course. We will review our policies and procedures and update them to reflect lessons learned from this experience.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELast weekend, Georgia Tech acted to suspend one of its free online courses, citing technical and quality issues. Administrators say the MOOC, or massively open online course, will be evaluated and possibly reopened at a future date.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Citing technical and quality issues, administrators say the course will be evaluated and possibly reopened at a future date"}],"uid":"27299","created_gmt":"2013-02-05 10:48:40","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:13:37","author":"Michael Hagearty","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-02-05T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-02-05T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.pe.gatech.edu\/","title":"Professional Education"},{"url":"https:\/\/www.coursera.org\/gatech","title":"Georgia Tech Coursera"}],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"129","name":"Institute and Campus"}],"keywords":[{"id":"38281","name":"Coursera"},{"id":"14385","name":"mooc"},{"id":"2662","name":"professional education"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}