TVETipedia Glossary

‘Online courses designed for a large number of participants that can be accessed by anyone anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection.’

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are online courses designed for a large number of participants that can be accessed by anyone anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection.

Two forms of MOOCs have emerged. In cMOOCs, learners are encouraged (though not required) to contribute actively via blog posts, tweets or other social media posts that are aggregated online by course organisers and shared with all participants via email or newsletters. The “c” stands for “connectivist” and the course approach is typically that learners pursue their own learning outcomes with a focus on community and connections. xMOOCs, on the other hand, resemble traditional courses and more traditional higher education teaching methods are used. Pre-recorded video lectures and scalable forms of assessment are provided to learners who can interact in pre-set forums in a single platform rather than creating and/or sharing distributed content on the Web outside the platform.

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is an online course available for large enrolment on the open web, where open largely refers to open registration, and not necessarily courses in open licence.

A MOOC, which is an abbreviation of massive open online course, offers free education in an online environment, with no limit on class size. MOOCs are a relatively new development in education, representing a trend towards affordable education availability for the masses, in a collaborative, connected space, with traditional educational materials, like lecture slides and videos, supplemented with interactive elements.