Nov'&Newz

Recently introduced in France through a governmental service named “FUN” (France Université Numérique), MOOCs are the new way to access courses taught in many well-known universities all around the world.

We wanted to dig a little more about this recent revolution in knowledge sharing.

 

 

In a first place, what's a MOOC ?

 

MOOC is an acronym for Massively Open Online Course.

Massively: Some courses were viewed by more than 170.000 internet users at the same time.

Open: can be seen by anyone. MOOCS are mostly free.

Online: available at any time or anywhere with an Internet access.

Course: as you are in a classroom, a teacher or a speaker deals with a subject.

 

 

Technically, MOOCs have a lot of common points with traditional courses.

For example, methodology is the same one used in colleges: videos, readings and problem sets.  Moreover, there are different types of MOOCs, some courses are just made of viewable contents, and others can propose you some exercise to do as “homework”. The real strength of this new teaching model is everything that creates a community (interactive courses and forums, evaluating model by pairs…).

 

Based on a registering system through educative platforms, people just have to sign in and follow courses, which have different durations; shortest is often under 6 weeks.

Although almost all of MOOCs are free, they sometimes propose you to pay for an access to additional resources (writings, videos…).

Some prestigious universities like Harvard or the Princeton University created certifications under conditions, for people who attends courses and successfully validates exercises (more than 75% for Harvard...).

 

Even if those certifications have an international reputation, they are poorly considered by companies and detractors of MOOCs, considering that it is not equal to a traditional formation.

However, in light of the global increase of the amount of tuition fees, the number of those certifications could grow very quickly.

 

The remaining question is : when does MOOCs will be set up in Novancia... ;)

 

A.N