MOOCs in universities: Intelligent model for delivering online learning content

Abstract

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 conditions on attendance. Unlike traditional courses, MOOCs require additional skills, provided by videographers, instructional designers, IT specialists and platform specialists. Over the past few years several Universities facilitated partnership with MOOCs providers and are building MOOC courses, to serve as e-learning versions of their courses. Despite all the advantages offered by the MOOC courses, the current statistics show that only a very limited number of registered learners are completing the course. And the vast majority are stopping learning at an early stage. The main reason can be found in the lack of motivation of the students to pass the exams to become a certificate, because universities do not accept the certificates for credits. The aim of this paper is to study the readiness of students to take MOOC courses on one hand and the acceptance of MOOC courses in Universities. A study is conducted on two Universities, Hasselt University, Belgium and Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Jordan. The results of the study are promising, as they suggest that such virtual study programs are accepted in both Universities. However, professors in both Universities elucidate concerns on accepting the equivalence of the MOOC courses to their own courses.