The buzz world common in MOOCS and Open and Distance Learning (ODL) is open. The concept of open has birth to several strong movements in the world especially Open Source movement in computer software. Before going to know about the relation between ODL and MOOC, we must be known about ODL.
ODL is a general term for the use of telecommunication to provide or enhance learning. Around the world, the academic community is discovering and exploring the Internet, teleconferencing, and related means to achieve an extended classroom or learning experience.
'Distance Learning' term was first used in the 1970s and became more popular in 1982 after the International Council for Correspondence Education changed its name to the International Council for Distance Education (Holmberg, 2005). The organization is currently known as the International Council for Open Distance Education (ICDE) and promotes open, flexible, distance, and online education.
Michael Moore (1973) defined distance education as "The family of instructional methods in which the teaching behaviours are executed apart from the learning behaviours, includes those that in contiguous situations would be performed in the learner's presence so that communication between teacher and the learner must be facilitated by print, electronic, mechanical or other devices."
When Open University in the United Kingdom was established, it first Vice-Chancellor Lort Crowther said, the University will be open to people, place methods and ideas. This was a landmark in the history of openness in education. Thus, openness received new meaning beyond access as:
• No qualification requirement for entry.
• No physical boundary of the institution.
• Use of broadcasting and available technology to teach.
• Innovation with a focus to improve learning
MOOCs, OERs, and ODL-
As sharing of information on the web became easy, more universities and institutions started depending on what is available on the web. This led to the emergence of open content in 1998, and MIT open courseware was announced in 2001. The MIT OpenCourseWare released its first set of 50 courses in 2002. During the same year, UNESCO organized a forum on the impact of the open courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries that created the term Open Education Resources (OER).
The Forum defined OER as "the provision of educational resources enables by information, use, and adaption by a community of users for non-commercial purposes. There are several OER initiatives that deserve mention apart from the widely known MIT OpenCourseWare. Some of these are Connexion, OpenLearn, Japan Open Courseware, Consortium the China Open Resources for Education, NPTEL, the Indian Governments OER project through IITs, and the Vietnam Foundation.
The emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in 2008, followed by several for-profits and not-for-profit initiatives in the recent past, has supported a scenario, where teaching and learning can be served by anyone and any organization not necessarily by University alone.
MOOCs truly take advantage of the digital world and Internet to deliver teaching and learning to a large number of students, and are based on the principles of economies of scale of ODL. In addition, these are courses open to anyone with access to internet and interest to study a course or subject.