Examining the Potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)

IntroductionThe past decade has seen an increased presence of online educational platforms as a widespread mode for mass education evidenced by the growing popularity of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Unsurprisingly, The New York Times deemed 2012 the "year of the MOOC." These online platforms have enlivened a national conversation on innovation and a debate on their effectiveness in achieving the United States' postsecondary education goals. This article examines the extent to which historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) can participate in this conversation by reviewing the extant literature on distance learning technologies at HBCUs and the available data on technological infrastructure at HBCUs using the National Center for Education Statistics' Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. Rather than solely joining the "MOOC bandwagon," these authors suggest that HBCU leaders are in a suitable position to serve as advocates to bridge the persistent (racial) digital divide in the nation; a necessary first step if one is to envision MOOCs as a suitable supplement for education.As an emerging phenomenon in higher education, MOOCs persist without a stable definition (Baggaley, 2013) For this article, the authors define MOOCs as online courses offered through mediated agreements, and hosted in partnerships with companies such as Coursera (coursera.org) Udacity (udacity.com) edX (edX.org) NovoEd formerly Venture Labs (novoed.com or venture lab.org) and Udemy (udemy.com; Billington Fronmueller, 2013) MOOCs, unlike other forms of online education, are free, and aim to enroll thousands of students. Additionally, unlike the traditional models of online education, MOOCs engage with the "flipped classroom" model where instructors opt to "act more like a tutor walking among the students rather than a sage on the stage performing a monologue" (Voss, 2013, p. 23).Therefore, the question is asked, what is the capacity of HBCUs to integrate MOOCs into their learning models? Also, will MOOCs serve as an enhancement to HBCU campuses, their missions, and their students? In this article, these questions are answered by focusing on two key issues undergirding the assumption of MOOCs potential to innovate the future of higher education. First, the authors forefront the lack of adequate extant data (mis)used to claim that MOOCs can be effective throughout the varied institutional contexts of higher education. Secondly, attention is drawn to the national digital divide that hinders the potential for MOOCs to effectively succeed. Using these two propositions, the aim is to temper the knee jerk disposition to believe that MOOCs can serve as a panacea for higher education's challenges.MethodologyThe basis of this article is a comprehensive literature review pertaining to HBCUs and MOOCs, supplemented with national data. A systematic approach is used to crafting a literature review. This approach is important as this is the first article to examine the topics of MOOCs within the HBCU context. This study is laying the foundation for future research. The literature review is divided into three sections that provide a landscape and delve deeper into the needs and concerns of key constituents on HBCU campuses. Section one focuses on the literature pertaining to MOOCs overall, the rise of technology on college campuses, including the HBCU context. Section two pertains to these general topics but examines the role and needs of faculty with this context. Finally, section three of the literature review considers the student and his or her learning and role in the potential adoption of MOOCs on HBCU campuses. In addition to a focus specifically on HBCUs, the authors also consider the overarching digital divide in the United States as well as the lack of data to make good decisions about the adoption of MOOCs at HBCUs. This comprehensive literature review leads to a set of recommendations for HBCUs to consider when thinking about adopting MOOCs as a part of their curricula or partnering with MOOC platforms.