Over the past five years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have a remarkable ability to expand... more Over the past five years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have a remarkable ability to expand access to a large scale of participants worldwide to attend free online courses, beyond the formality of the higher education systems. MOOCs have unique features that support a movement toward a vision of lifelong and on-demand learning for those who are working full time or have taken a break from formal education. Despite their popularity and the large scale participation, a variety of concerns and criticism in the use of MOOCs have been raised. The original concept of MOOCs that aims at breaking down obstacles to education for anyone, anywhere and at any time is far away from the reality. In fact, most MOOC implementations so far still follow a top-down, controlled, teacher-centered, and centralized learning model. Endeavors to implement bottom-up, student-centered, truly open, decentralized, and distributed forms of MOOCs are exceptions rather than the rule. Moreover, the lack of human interaction is the major limitation of the existing MOOCs. Other limitations of MOOCs include pedagogical problems concerning assessment and feedback, the lack of interactivity around the video content, as well as the complexity and diversity of MOOC participants. Furthermore, a major problem with MOOCs is the ignorance of the importance and benefits of face-toface communication. These limitations raise some serious concerns on what role MOOCs should play, or how they should fit into the higher education landscape as an alternative model of teaching and learning and a substantial supplement.
Over the past five years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have a remarkable ability to expand... more Over the past five years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have a remarkable ability to expand access to a large scale of participants worldwide to attend free online courses, beyond the formality of the higher education systems. MOOCs have unique features that support a movement toward a vision of lifelong and on-demand learning for those who are working full time or have taken a break from formal education. Despite their popularity and the large scale participation, a variety of concerns and criticism in the use of MOOCs have been raised. The original concept of MOOCs that aims at breaking down obstacles to education for anyone, anywhere and at any time is far away from the reality. In fact, most MOOC implementations so far still follow a top-down, controlled, teacher-centered, and centralized learning model. Endeavors to implement bottom-up, student-centered, truly open, decentralized, and distributed forms of MOOCs are exceptions rather than the rule. Moreover, the lack of human interaction is the major limitation of the existing MOOCs. Other limitations of MOOCs include pedagogical problems concerning assessment and feedback, the lack of interactivity around the video content, as well as the complexity and diversity of MOOC participants. Furthermore, a major problem with MOOCs is the ignorance of the importance and benefits of face-toface communication. These limitations raise some serious concerns on what role MOOCs should play, or how they should fit into the higher education landscape as an alternative model of teaching and learning and a substantial supplement.
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