Just a few years ago, a huge vogue erupted among higher-ed administrators for MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. Anant Agarwal, president of the online education company edX, at the time made a bold vow: “Online education will change the world.”
After the educational elite launched these seemingly visionary programs, however, their enthusiasm was swiftly curbed. As Stephanie Garlock observes in the new issue of Harvard Magazine, The New York Times dubbed 2012 “The Year of the MOOC,” but before 2013 was out, The Washington Post was asking if MOOCs were “already over.”