Stephanie Majors's List: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

• Mooc is an acronym for “massive open online course”. It refers to a web-based class designed to support a large number of participants.
• ypically, students enrolled in a Mooc watch video lectures – often sliced into digestible 10 or 15-minute segments – and interact with instructors and fellow participants in online forums. Some moocs require students to take online tests or quizzes with multiple choice answers that can be graded automatically, while others require students to complete peer-reviewed assignments. Some moocs use a combination of these assessments.
• A key advantage of moocs over traditional classroom-based learning is their convenience.

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• What Is a MOOC? 

  A massive open online course (MOOC) is a model for delivering learning content online to any person who wants to take a course, with no limit on attendance.

• Until recently, that is, when college professors began broadcasting their courses to a worldwide audience. They called their courses “MOOCs,” which stands for massive open online courses and is pronounced “mooks.” Suddenly, that unfortunate syllable could be heard everywhere: in the news and the blogs, at tech conferences and faculty meetings, in legislative hearings and policy proposals.
• “A course of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people.”

• OOCs are the natural evolution of OpenCourseWare, first created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2001.
• A MOOC is an online course with the option of free and open registration, a publicly-shared curriculum, and open-ended outcomes. MOOCs integrate social networking, accessible online resources, and are facilitated by leading practitioners in the field of study. Most significantly, MOOCs build on the engagement of learners who self-organize their participation according to learning goals, prior knowledge and skills, and common interests.