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At a workshop, we focused on the need to generate a more reliable process for assessing the effects of various aspects of MOOCs. The power of our current analytics suffers from the absence of a systematic approach. Much of the information we have to draw from exists solely in anecdotal form. For example, teachers who have been teaching a certain course in a traditional classroom style for years try implementing MOOCs and find that their students perform better or worse with the new style. However, it is difficult to compare the claims of these anecdotes because of the large number of variables involved.

Members of the Extension Engine team were lucky enough to participate in an exciting workshop that is bringing together professionals from a variety of industries to discuss the future of MOOCs. The workshop, titled “Learning with MOOCs: A Practitioner’s Workshop” covered material from sessions and key insights gleaned from our experience here to promote education about MOOCs and how to best implement them.

Tim Mauri wants more people to have weight loss surgery. You see, Tim works in marketing for Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson medical device company that manufactures, among other things, instruments used for weight loss surgery. As the market leader in the weight loss surgery arena, it’s all quite simple for Ethicon: the more people who have weight loss surgery, the more instruments Ethicon sells.

“Open edX could become the Wordpress of the MOOC space: dominant, ubiquitous, and the de facto choice for putting your course online.”