By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics
When Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) began to take traction in 2011, there was much fanfare about how .聽The possibility of opening up courses offered at top universities for the masses led some to believe that the gap between the haves and the have-nots would finally close.聽Unfortunately, more than half a decade later, there are no clear signs that the gap has closed.聽In fact, .聽To make matters worse, some free MOOCs have become semi-free.
To recuperate part of the cost of developing and running MOOCs, at least two major MOOC platforms have for verified certificates for completion of courses or programs.
Under this model, there is not a fixed price for taking a course.聽Instead, there is a monthly charge for accessing a course until completion.聽In other words, students can take as much time as they need (though still with certain hard deadlines) to complete a course provided they keep paying the monthly fee.
Therefore, one who works through the material slowly can end up paying a lot more than one who works through the material quickly.聽To be fair, some platforms do offer various types of financial aid.聽As to who qualifies, one will have to read the fine print.
Even though the paid version of a course offers more bells and whistles (such as access to mentors, feedback from human experts, extra graded exercises etc.), the monthly subscription model makes learning at one鈥檚 own pace a luxury for those who can afford it.聽As a result, when it comes to democratizing education, MOOCs have not yet lived up to the hype.