Universities and college have been humanity’s intellectual, societal, and cultural meeting grounds almost since we began valuing these traits as a species. Technologies come and go, but the main ways in which these campuses produce and distribute information, as well as how they stimulate and interact with students has remained relatively unchanged--it hasn’t been until recently that the traditional role of the physical college/university has begun to shift. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are changing the landscape at a breakneck rate, causing many to wonder: will college ever fully adopt the massive, open, and free architecture? For the prospective employer and their HR departments, this can cause a headache, as they will have to weigh raw knowledge against lack of certification.

The Impetus of Massive Open Online Courses

In late 2011, professors Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig became the first professors to launch and teach an MOOC. Offered via Stanford University, these two instructed 160,000 students through pre-recorded video lectures, proceeding together as a virtual “classroom” instead of as individual agents fraught with all the concerns of self-guided learning. The first MOOC was such a huge success that by 2012, Harvard and MIT (among several other universities) began offering MOOCs of their own, and the trend had officially begun, with many colleges collaborating to create not-for-profit programs such as edX to offer courses together. This drive in innovation can be essentially chalked up better performance in the realm of streaming video as time has gone on, with 1080p delivered seamlessly nowadays for cheap.

“Video is very important to a Coursera course, being the primary vehicle for teaching class content for virtually all our classes,” say Koh. “Videos allow us to establish a visual connection between the professor and her students,” establishing and reinforcing that “their teacher is a real person rather than someone hidden behind text or images.”

Is Streaming Video the College Norm?

If it’s been awhile, or if you’ve never been, here’s a refresher on how much college costs: Princeton University in 2015-2016 charged $45,150 for tuition for the year. Harvard and MIT, both mentioned above, cost $45,278 and $46,704 respectively--compared to the cost of “free” for their MOOC courses. It’s no wonder that kids nowadays are flocking to the online medium. But without a being required to pay, and more importantly, without the hands-on experience that comes from in-classroom learning, will hiring institutions be able to trust that students are getting the education necessary to compete in the job market? According to Professor Hank Lucas of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, the answer could be “yes”.

In an article for EdTech Magazine, Lucas states that “some universities… are building for-credit classes and degree programs around MOOCs, which is a huge threat to traditional universities and degree programs.” This is because the courses truly aren’t offering much more in the way of education than the depersonalized in-class experience, also shared with hundreds of other students.

New Hires Already Have Huge Lack of Skills… Right?

Some worry that continuing the mode of education that we’ve had for so long already will be disastrous for businesses that aren’t getting the right types of employees. Furthermore, implementations that devalue that education instead of bolster it are precisely what employers worry will continue to widen the chasm we call the “skills gap” which is apparently still an issue in 2016. When looking at the skills gap however, especially in the IT sector, it’s worthwhile to note that while 70% of IT leaders view actual lack of skill to be the biggest issue in seeking quality candidates, only 25% of IT professionals agree.

The cautionary tale here is that even though many businesses report that they’re not getting the right types of hires or right types of skills from their workers, it’s entirely possible that they are setting their standards too high. Of course there’s a great divide between college training and the real world--but when did businesses stop believing in the training to bridge that gap?

MOOCs May Offer Students More Time to Work and Learn Simultaneously

I believe that HR professionals will actually benefit from workers who are training and gaining education via MOOCs. These students have to be more self-motivated than their contemporaries to stick to their own schedule, and may even have a higher emotional quotient (EQ) scores because of their ability to communicate through multiple mediums.

Unfortunately, only time will tell whether or not MOOCs kill the employability of the future new hire. However, if the figures and assumptions we can extrapolate from the skills gap issues are true, maybe these online courses will be a blessing in disguise. Businesses and HR departments might even be able to adopt the streaming video/MOOC model to bridge that skills gap, working together with colleges to develop courses that cater specifically to their industries.

Do you have any experience with new hires and MOOCs? Post about your experiences in the comments section below.