If non-elite colleges and universities want to avoid the fate of travel agencies and film companies, what should they do in the age of free MOOCs? I’d suggest focusing more clearly on what they can offer that MOOCs can’t. That means having people around to help students get through the perplexing parts of courses; having advisors who can help students knit together disparate courses into coherent programs; organized tutoring; in-person collaboration and projects; ‘flipped’ classrooms; and specialized facilities. It absolutely does NOT mean large lecture halls. In fact, the flipped classroom – in which the lecture is delivered online, and class time is devoted to doing the work, with a professor available as a resource – could work beautifully with a MOOC. Freed from the burden of having to explicate the basics over and over again, on-site faculty could use class time to shore up weak points, pursue deeper understandings of the material, and even have students apply it.
http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean/competing-%E2%80%9Cfree%E2%80%9D-part-two
