Awareness of MOOCs among Students: A Study of Kurukshetra University

Abstract

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for students, professors, and teaching assistants. MOOCs have recently received a great deal of attention from the press, education professionals, entrepreneurial vendors, and technologically literate sections of the public.

MOOCs will provide free access to advanced courses to students of higher education in the university system. Across the world, premier universities have put their courses online by setting up open learning platforms, such as edX. Commercial start-ups such as Coursera and Udacity have also been launched in collaboration with prestigious universities, offering online courses for free or charging a small fee for certification. The rapid expansion of MOOCs has sparked commercial interest from venture capitalists and major corporations who want to enter the Higher Education (HE) market using a MOOC approach.

Students’ participation in MOOCs is a vital area of interest. Factors that influence students to learn include developing personal and professional identity, challenge and achievement, enjoyment, and fun. A Survey conducted at Kurukshetra University shows that student awareness fell into three categories a) To support lifelong learning and understanding of the subject matter, b) For fun, social experience, and intellectual c) To experience or explore online education.

Keywords: MOOC, Massive Open Online Courses, Kurukshetra University, Online education, Awareness