The advent of massive open online courses has created a world of ¡°haves and have-nots¡± in terms of disciplines that can adapt easily to the format and those that cannot, according to new research.

In his paper ¡°The Online Future(s) of Teaching Japanese Popular Culture¡±, Chris McMorran, senior lecturer in the department of Japanese studies at the National University of Singapore, argues that while the Mooc is ¡°democratising education¡±, some fields face significant obstacles in bringing courses online.

Dr McMorran suggests that fields that seem perfect for Moocs, because they can make use of ¡°exciting¡± visual and audio media such as clips from films and television shows as well as music videos, are hindered by having to ¡°navigate the confusing waters of copyright¡±.

He told Times Higher Education?that this could prevent some subjects expanding their popularity and, in some cases, impede academics¡¯ career progression.

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¡°I toyed with the idea of making one, [but] then I thought it would be quite difficult because of this issue of copyright,¡± he said. ¡°Not only would there be ¡®haves¡¯ and ¡®have-nots¡¯ within institutions [who might not be able to resource Moocs], but [beyond that] within any given institution there would be certain fields that could be turned into Moocs more easily, stuff that could be developed more easily than others.

¡°Some people I know have got promoted quite quickly because of their ability to take advantage of this technology and this new teaching style. [But] there¡¯ll be a whole field of scholars who cannot [do so] because of the nature of what they teach.¡±

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He added that if ¡°participation in this revolution¡± was being pushed by senior management, ¡°not being able to participate will look bad for that scholar¡±.

The paper highlights the fact that the original business model for Moocs was developed with the various fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics in mind.

¡°Existing online technologies enable any course to reach millions of learners; however, it is no wonder that the first and most common Moocs have been in STEM fields,¡± it states. ¡°Particularly at the introductory level, such courses do not require major adjustments each year. Students can simply watch a series of video lectures and do online problem sets that scaffold their learning of content and skills.¡±

Consequently, Dr McMorran?believes, suggesting that all Moocs can be adapted to that model is short-sighted.

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¡°To extrapolate and say that all Moocs can be designed in the same way, serve the same kinds of needs, doesn¡¯t acknowledge that there¡¯s such a diversity of teaching styles and methods,¡± he said.

¡°The ones that rely on copyright material aren¡¯t built for this [model]. Moocs were not designed to help those.¡±

These issues were not restricted to fields where media use is commonplace, such as film studies, but would affect the wider humanities and social sciences as well, he said.

¡°As a geographer, I can continue to do my job without doing a Mooc; but of course if I did a Mooc and I could suddenly get 30-40,000 students around the world interested in the topic, it would look good for Japanese studies,¡± he said.

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john.elmes@tesglobal.com