They’ve been theoretically discussed for a decade, tested by some of the United State’s elite universities, and discussed on our site before, but Massive Open Online Courses (or, MOOCs) are now truly taking the world by storm.
MOOCs are an experiment in accessible higher education, free online courses taught by professors or other leaders in a field that are available to people around the world. They can provide a high-quality educational experience for people who may otherwise lack direct access (because of geographical, economic, or other reasons) to higher education. This creates tremendous potential for opportunities and advancement that was previously unheard of for the poor, marginalized, and isolated.
While universities, such as Stanford and MIT, continue to experimentally offer a small selection of free online courses taught by their professors, online start-ups, such as Udacity, Udemy, and Coursera, are aggregating and expanding MOOCs to reach a wider audience with a broader range of topics. Classes relating to technology and engineering seem to dominate the MOOC world currently, like the Artificial Intelligence course taught by a Stanford professor and Google engineer last fall that had nearly 200,000 students registered from 190 different countries.
The implications of MOOCs for traditional higher education are unknown, but their revolutionizing potential seems great, and with a number of universities already interested and exploring, their future is bright.
Creative Commons Love: nooccar on Flickr.com
