MOOC stands for “massive open online course.” The term was coined by a group of Canadian academics in 2008 to represent an online class. But now day Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a hugely popular phenomenon in the online learning world. They are hailed by many as a solution for the developing world's lack of access to education because MOOCs can provide learning opportunities to a massive number of learners from anywhere in the world as long as they can access the course through the Internet. However, a close consideration of the ability of learners from most developing countries to make use of MOOCs seems to contradict this rhetoric.
Coursera, EdX, and Futurelearn have come up as the prominent platforms in exploring the possibilities and promotion of MOOCs programs. In 2018, for the first time, more than 100 million people learned with MOOCs (Class Central, 2018b) – and more than 50% used MOOCs to upgrade their labour-market relevant skills (Shah, 2018). The potential of MOOCs to deliver education around the globe has created great interest not only in academic circles but also in the news, making MOOCs a contemporary buzzword. The growing global demand for higher education places, especially in India, where 40 million additional university places are estimated to be required by 2025 (Everitt,2013), provides a strong case for MOOCs as an alternative to in-person university education.
Reasons for the growing popularity of MOOCs-
Why do colleges and universities want to get involved in MOOCs? What's more exciting than teaching tens of thousands of students all around the world? One common reason for doing a MOOC is that it can be taken by anyone, anywhere in the world. One can gain access to the course material and the professional direction from some of the best universities and professors in the world. The best part is that most of these courses are at no cost and you can take them at your own convenience and pace. You could take a class on a subject that is not available in your college, or you could just simply take a course to increase your knowledge base and check out another professor's view on a topic of your subject specializations. Let's have a look at some of these reasons in detail.