Online learning: Campus 2.0 - M. Mitchell Waldrop, Nature

Massive open online courses are transforming higher education — and providing fodder for scientific research. There is reason to hope that this is a positive development, says Roy Pea, who heads a Stanford centre that studies how people use technology. MOOCs, which have incorporated decades of research on how students learn best, could free faculty members from the drudgery of repetitive introductory lectures. What's more, they can record online students' every mouse click, an ability that promises to transform education research by generating data that could improve teaching in the future. “We can have microanalytics on every paper, every test, right down to what media each student prefers,” says Pea. http://www.nature.com/news/online-learning-campus-2-0-1.12590