Squeezing the limeade: policies and workflows for scalable online degrees

Abstract

In recent years, non-credit options for learning at scale have outpaced for-credit options. To scale for-credit options, workflows and policies must be devised to preserve the characteristics of accredited higher education---such as the presumption of human evaluation and an assertion of academic integrity---despite increased scale. These efforts must follow as well with shifting from offering isolated courses (or informal collections thereof) to offering full degree programs with additional administrative elements. We see this shift as one from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to Large, Internet-Mediated Asynchronous Degrees (Limeades). In this work, we perform a qualitative research study on one such program that has scaled to 6,500 students while retaining full accreditation. We report a typology of policies and workflows employed by the individual classes to deliver this experience.