[robbiemitchell]

There must be other ways to provide structure than one built around a fixed schedule oriented around when a professor is delivering lectures, no?

Simple ideas: - Rolling start dates - Weekly collaboration days/times where all students who happen to be at a shared point in the course, or a shared point in their understanding of the material, discuss

These have their own drawbacks, too, but they're possible. Especially if the network is big enough. Once you have a bunch of students doing this, you then go--why bother affiliating with one particular university if I can get the classes I need no matter where I sit?

[ghaff]

Fair enough. Part of the problem is that the things (like collaboration) that do depend on some sort of synchronization are also the things that probably work worst in MOOCs. I've pretty much given up on MOOC forums beyond anything related to technical or other issues with some aspect of the course. As actual discussion forums, I find them near worthless for a variety of reasons.