How could MITx change MIT?

“The Massachusetts Institute of Technology ended 2011 with a grand announcement: It would broadcast massive, open online courses — equal in rigor to its on-campus offerings — to tens of thousands of non-enrolled, non-paying learners around the world. Eventually, the university would offer these students a pathway to some sort of credential. The project, called MITx, was heralded as a major step toward using technology to refigure the economics of higher education. Now comes the hard part: actually pulling it off. The first course, 6.002x: Circuits & Electronics, appears to be going smoothly, drawing 120,000 registrants since it opened last month. MIT, meanwhile, is beginning to grapple with the practical aspects of the project. After spending the winter talking about MITx with curious journalists and educators around the world, the project’s administrative ambassadors have started engaging with the university’s own vaunted faculty members, who have raised hard questions about what precisely MITx portends for the future of the university. In a provocative essay in the latest edition of MIT’s faculty newsletter, Woodie Flowers, an emeritus professor of mechanical engineering, draws a distinction between training and education. ‘Education is much more subtle and complex and is likely to be accomplished through mentorship or apprentice-like interactions between a learner and an expert,’ Flowers wrote, quoting from one of his own lectures. The ‘sweet spot for expensive universities such as MIT,’ he continued, is a blend of ‘highly-produced training systems’ and a high-touch apprenticeship model that emphasizes direct interactions between faculty and students. ‘MITx,’ Flowers contends, ‘seems aimed at neither’ Samuel Allen, a professor of metallurgy and chair of the MIT faculty, wrote an essay for the same issue of the newsletter that struck a less critical tone but also raised questions about the implications of inexpensive online iterations of the university’s curricular offerings. ‘If MITx is wildly successful, what is the future of the residential education experience that has been our mode of teaching for MIT’s entire history?” Allen wrote. “If students can master course materials online for free (or for a modest ‘credentialing’ fee), what incentives would there be for anyone to invest in an expensive residential college education?’ While Allen did not advise the university against pursuing its MITx vision, the faculty chair recommended that MIT invest more heavily in its undergraduate advising program in order to safeguard the value proposition of its expensive on-campus experience. Champions of the project, including the university's provost and chancellor, are currently meeting with department heads to gauge how faculty members are reacting to  MITx. ‘My sense is that there remains a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm among most of our faculty, and a lot of good questions,’ says Eric Grimson, a professor of computer science and engineering and chancellor of MIT. Grimson says he, Provost L. Rafael Reif, and Anant Agarwal, the head of MIT's computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory, are scheduling town-hall style forums where faculty will be able to engage them directly. MIT administrators recognize the sensitivity that comes with voluntarily challenging assumptions about an operating model that has served it well, and continues to do so. Massively open online courses, or MOOCs are increasingly part of the national conversation about change in higher education, as high-profile institutions such as MIT and Stanford University have anted up and gained huge followings; nobody is worried that MITx will fizzle out. The greater question is: What if MITx is too successful?”