MOOCS – are they the future for distance education? There’s a lot of interest in Massive Online Open Courses at the moment like those run by Coursera.  These are open online courses that anyone can take for free altho’ they will generally have to pay to take an assessment for a qualification. There seem to me to be a number of questions that should be looked at before assuming that MOOCS are the way forward for distance education: 1.       Dropout rates are high – most MOOCS so far have graduation rates of 10% or less.  Proponents argue that this doesn’t matter as participation...

This blog is about my new book ‘Supporting Students for Success in Online and Distance Education’ to be published by Routledge New York on 17th December 2012 http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415509107/ I’ll be posting regularly from that date on issues about student retention and dropout in conventional and distance education.