Assessment, accountability & accreditation: a study of MOOC provider perceptions

2015-06-17This qualitative study explored how Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) providers perceive the concepts of assessment, accountability, and accreditation. Seven MOOC providers were interviewed via Skype, telephone and email correspondence. Their responses were transcribed, coded and analyzed to identify common themes. Respondents perceived MOOCs as part of a larger shift in education towards online learning, which requires assessment to become more student-centered. Regarding accountability, students are the primary stakeholders. By focusing on direct measures of student success, MOOCs will potentially decouple traditional measures of higher education prestige and rankings. Regarding accreditation, MOOCs could be institutionally accredited when they are delivered as part of a degree program, and directly accredited when used for professional education. Additional research is needed to determine how accrediting bodies can better incentivize MOOCs to participate in the accreditation process. The outcomes from this study can inform educational leaders, policy makers, and accrediting bodies on how MOOC providers themselves wish to be assessed