Ian Bogost has provided a great summary of the problems of MOOCs in the roundtable appearing in the Los Angeles Review of Books. Here are the bullet points, but go read the entire piece:
- MOOCs are a type of marketing
- MOOCs are a financial policy for higher education
- MOOCs are an academic labor policy
- MOOCs are speculative financial instruments
- MOOCs are an expression of Silicon Valley values
- MOOCs are a kind of entertainment media
Bogost’s thoughts are a nice counterpoint to the naive, overblown optimism that comes from some MOOC supporters who seem willing to accept them as inevitable, or even preferable.
Jacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics 
Mark:
What’s really interesting about that last observation of yours is that Bogost is, I think, the only person in that crowd who’s an actual computer scientist.
I noticed that, too.