My reply is relevant to both your topic and the MOOC topic that was recently closed - before I joined.
I wonder if there if there is any interest in a systems approach to preparing (MOOC) courses. That is generating them from subject matter ontologies. I was thinking in the context of schools, where the practice of studying the same subject year after year at successively analytically deeper or content expanded levels. And I envisaged nested sequences of subject ontologies being drivers for sequences of grade school courses.
At the time I Googled around to get some idea what online courses looked like; I found it quite depressing. I remember being particularly disappointed with what I found at the UoNottingham, here at UoCalgary, and many others. I expected better from such institutions. All their efforts came under the heading, MOOCs, so the term is now destroyed for me.
My academic background is Math, but I always worked in computing (mining, oil, banking, botany). I am now retired.
I am pretty sure that with well constructed UML(Unified Modelling Language) type models the depressing MOOCs above could be generated. Indeed I think the process could even accommodate points of view or focus. But it very much depends on the models being a lot more than simple word lists, that some authors call ontologies. Ontology is a much abused term on the net.
As I recall, the most developed area in generated course content is math (ALEKS). But I did notice that ontologies for various subjects are just beginning to appear on the net. So this is not a short term approach, but the payback is vast; maybe we need an Ontology equivalent of the Human Genome project. I also remember publication of a web-type (HTML-like) grammar/protocol for a universal knowledge network ! I think Berners-Lee (WWW/HTML inventor) was working on it
Now I’m studying games technology (just started), which includes the notion of gamification. I think game environments offer a strong possibility of getting away from the MOOCs.
