My respone below to the article at

http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/jp/u-of-alberta-teams-up-with-udacity-to-build-a-better-mooc?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en

Congratulations to the U of Alberta and other universities for waking up to the future. Athabasca University, in the same province as UofA, and  other open universities have been running MOOC-like courses, but not calling them that for many years -- we have been using real instructional designers. And, at Athabasca, challenge for credit, in which learners can take an examination based on their acquired knowledge, have been in place for many years, along with a robust prior learning assessment and recognition system. The new MOOC phenomenon itself  was begun by Athabasca University staff member George Siemens with partners across Canada.