Lessons and prospects from the Massive Open Online Course “Managing building adaptation” for real estate education

In this century, online education increasingly has become a crucial means to educate a broad public about contemporary issues in any academic field including real estate. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) for instance are free online courses available for anyone to enrol worldwide usually attracting more than 1,000 students. This abstract discusses real estate education lessons and prospects from the MOOC “Managing Building Adaptation: A Sustainable Approach” developed and taught by the author and various department colleagues. This online course ran from September to October 2017, attracted 2,500 students, issued 39 certificates, and involved a complete new course set up in terms of learning objectives, learning activities and assessment methods. As one of the first free online real estate courses valuable lessons might be drawn and prospects can be explored for real estate education. Therefore, first, lessons are drawn on the course itself, covering the course structure, development, and didactics by making use of concrete examples from MOOC online modules and student and staff evaluations. Goal of this lesson-drawing part is to comprehend the difference between MOOC education and ‘traditional’ (real estate) education. One key finding is that massive open online education require teachers to reformulate and reframe education material (e.g. presentations, videos, reading material) in such a way that it grasps the topic’s essence, allowing it to be suitable for an online learning environment. Second, prospects are discussed for the future of real estate education, touching upon some recent topics in ERES education debates including students’ industry-readiness, development of academic skills, etc. Aim of this part is to identify what the role of online real estate courses could be in educating a global audience, and what type of online real estate education could trigger an broader interest in ‘on-site’ real estate education programmes. One prospect is that online courses could appeal to a broad international public once it touches upon global real estate challenges, while simultaneously allowing for practical case assignments which assist students in practising with real estate management, development, finance and investment tools. In general the experiences with and findings from this particular MOOC potentially widen and deepen the debate about the future of real estate education.