Massive Open Online Opportunity: MOOCs and Internet-Based Communities of Archaeological Practice (pp. 265-270 in 21st Century Archaeology: Concepts, Methods, Tools), 2015 (original) (raw)

2015, In F. Giligny, F. Djindjian, L. Costa, P. Moscati & S. Robert (eds.), 21st Century Archaeology: Concepts, Methods and Tools (Oxford: Archaeopress)

While the World Wide Web has provided the public with heretofore-unimagined access to information, the democratization of online content creation has also provided an unprecedented opportunity for the spread of misinformation and misinterpretation. Archaeology is no exception, as developments like the exposing of museum collections, the ability to conduct armchair “surveys,” and unfettered access to uncontextualized images via simple Web search have combined to confront a new generation of avocational and aspiring archaeologists with myriad explanations and interpretations of artifacts, archaeological data, and history writ large. The rise of MOOCs (both as “massive open online courses” and as repositories for massively-accessible online content) may help combat this by providing a structured mechanism for practitioners to reach, interact with, educate, and learn from an ever-growing online audience. This is of particular importance for archaeology, a field in which standards of conduct and interpretation are keys to sound and ethical practice.