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Even if the heady attention of one-to-one tutorials is the stuff of Oxbridge dreams for most, personal attention from tutors who challenge students' thinking in small seminar groups is often cited as critical to the quality of learning in higher education, and integral to the value of a degree.
Now close your eyes and imagine studying for a degree entirely by communing with your computer. Not just that, but you're one of thousands accumulating credits via massive open online courses (Moocs), open to all, free to all and with no entry requirements besides an internet connection and reasonable fluency in English.
Very few Moocs lead to any sort of officially recognised qualification, so the recent success of the University of the People in being permitted to award degrees to students studying for its tuition-free, online-only courses marks a departure for the sector. Welcome to bachelors and master's-by-Mooc…could these become a viable alternative to a traditional degree?
It very much depends, says Diana Laurillard, professor of learning with digital technologies at the Institute of Education, on what you mean by Mooc – and what constitutes a Mooc is evolving all the time. The University of the People, for example, states that undergraduates will study in groups of 30 to 40. This is a long way from the tens of thousands of students that some Moocs have attracted, and allows for tutor interaction and individual guidance not available on other such courses.
Laurillard herself is setting up a new professional skills Mooc for primary school teachers interested in ICT. Around 6,000 have signed up: 41% of those are from developing economies. It won't currently, she explains, lead to formal accreditation – but then many professional development courses don't. If students choose to pay $49 for a certificate, they'll get a piece of paper that confirms they completed the course.
However, Laurillard muses, as this Mooc requires 60 hours of work, she might, as an experiment, "talk to the university about making it six credits towards your master's."
This would be just one small component of an overall degree, developed, taught and accredited by a highly-respected university. It's a long way from hiring your gown and mortarboard after studying for a degree solely by accumulating completion certificates for a number of Moocs.
At the Open University, professor Mike Sharples, chair in educational technology, says: "The big question is whether you can [offer degrees] without tutorial support, and so at lower cost. I think it's very brave what the University of the People is doing, but it's going to be very difficult to keep people motivated."
His view is that it's probably possible to run degree courses where learners help each other in smallish groups with educators on hand to guide at critical points and answer the big questions, though students will need to be extremely driven to get through.
Moocs providers need to engage with students
The degree and quality of tutor interactions is seen as critical to any chance of success by others in the sector, too. Matt Wingfield, managing director of Tag Assessment, a firm providing assessment software, says that Moocs will have to change considerably to gain credibility and improve the quality of students' learning experience.
Wingfield observes that while sophisticated technologies now exist to capture someone's work in range of different ways, constructive reflection and building understanding of a subject in the longer-term will depend on Mooc providers "offering mechanisms to engage with students more during the course of the study so there is better learning and better completion rates – and they have to make their assessments more rigorous."
Mooc tutors have to deal with large numbers of students. Can online interactions with a tutor who will never know your capacities, enthusiasms and weaknesses ever replace traditional feedback and encouragement that's delivered in person? Wingfield sounds doubtful. "Moocs can't do the personal feedback easily," he says. "Mooc providers need to find ways to make the assessment richer, more meaningful and more reliable at scale for larger audiences."
Students may make unnecessary sacrifices
Whether a degree made up of Moocs is worth the certificate it's written on will be another crucial question that anyone handing out such degrees will have to answer. This is a particular risk for students in the developing world who are eager to learn and desperate for meaningful qualifications that will allow them to build careers that are often the only way to transform their and their families' lives.
The prospect of a student in a poor country who makes enormous sacrifices – both in time and in income forgone – to study for a worthless degree should worry anyone who cares about education and those who hunger for it. Jim Donohue, chief product officer at Cengage Learning, which provides tailored digital information services for the higher education sector, underlines the point:
"In developing countries, there are better ways to reach learners in places where education is at a premium and there are not many choices…You don't want to have a bunch of third-rate schools." These better options include courses from providers such as the Open University and Ed2Go that provide "quality education for specific certificate programs in a much more personalised setting at very competitive prices and, in many cases, to developing nations gratis."
The ultimate test of any degree awarded by accumulating multiple Moocs, he points out, is what doors that piece of paper nudges open. "Eventually employers will decide how valuable they are," Donohue says. "But I question that lack of interpersonal relationship, and [current] lack of ability to accredit."
• This article was amended on Friday 13 June to correct an error which said that half of students had committed to paying $49 for a certificate. The correct figure is 200.
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