My idea with MOOCulus is that it will provide some data on the learning of calculus. It isn't about eliminating instructors; it's about giving instuctors data so they can teach better.
1) Do there exist easy methods to decide how good/effective/complete/accurate (add your own metric) an online course is?
For us, we get quite a bit of data from MOOCulus; you can see a bit about the "big data" issues at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj-C0JVY6mY
For others, the Quality Matters Rubric is a set of 8 general standards and 41 specific standards used to evaluate the design of online and blended courses.
2) Especially in public education, why isn't this type of course the norm by now?
The majority of the students taking math at OSU are already using some sort of online homework tool.
Slashdot Mirror
My idea with MOOCulus is that it will provide some data on the learning of calculus. It isn't about eliminating instructors; it's about giving instuctors data so they can teach better.
IF they improve it and release it, it can be improved on again and again.
I have big hopes for iterative improvements, guided by the data we're gathering.
The online exercises for this course are great!
I'm glad you like them. We get quite a bit of data from the online exercises.
We're building a Calculus Two course, and a complex analysis course.
Wow! I'm surprised to see this on slashdot. I've added a license to the github repo.
1) Do there exist easy methods to decide how good/effective/complete/accurate (add your own metric) an online course is?
For us, we get quite a bit of data from MOOCulus; you can see a bit about the "big data" issues at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj-C0JVY6mY For others, the Quality Matters Rubric is a set of 8 general standards and 41 specific standards used to evaluate the design of online and blended courses.
2) Especially in public education, why isn't this type of course the norm by now?
The majority of the students taking math at OSU are already using some sort of online homework tool.
Videos of actual blackboards, in some cases.
The videos aim to be a lot more than blackboard talks; take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otW6HcxrRlY for instance.
It's not a semi-intelligent program teaching you the subject
The exercises use a hidden Markov model to estimate whether the student has mastered a concept.
It's a nod towards COWculus, "calculus on web" from http://cow.math.temple.edu/