Massive Open Online Course/Courses. The term is relatively recent, apparently emerging first in 2008. MOOC is commonly pluralized - MOOCs - in references to the education market/industry and trends within education. According to Wikipedia 2012, "...the term MOOC was coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier, Manager of Web Communication and Innovations at the University of Prince Edward Island, and Senior Research Fellow Bryan Alexander of the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education in response to an open online course designed and led by George Siemens, associate director, Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca University and Stephen Downes, Senior Researcher at The National Research Council (Canada)..." A MOOC (a sort of VLE - Virtual Learning Environment) tends to have certain characteristics, although the concept is new and developing and subject to change, not least because some early market entrants/pioneers are commercially underpinned. MOOCs typically comprise the following elements: 'higher education' or 'further education', i.e., in the college/university space, not schooling for children; accessible via the web; free to learners (although some MOOCs require fees); available to/used by very big numbers of learners (from hundreds up to potentially millions per course); the learning is mainly learner-driven/controlled; registrations and certifications are (so far) less formal than in conventional further/higher education (although we can expect this aspect to become progressively more rigorous over time, and certain MOOCs and MOOC providers definitely require registration). MOOCs - and the concept itself - potentially represent a very big part of future further/higher education, especially for the 'mass market' of learners not wanting to be solicitors or doctors, etc., and especially considering the arguably declining and pressurized costs/value/quality of education in traditional 'bricks and mortar' universities, which, just like traditional books, newspapers, recorded music, retailing, etc., is an older, more rigid and expensive delivery model when competing with vastly more efficient supply/services available digitally via the web. MOOC critics and detractors may suggest that learning, like other forms of communication and relationships, always works best when conducted 'face-to-face' or at least in the physical presence of a teacher, and that the university life experience cannot be replaced by online activities. In many situations this is very true, except that an entire global generation is now growing up using phone/computer/tablet/digital systems for managing virtually every significant aspect of their lives. Future generations simply will not need the face-to-face contact that past generations did, just as nowadays we don't need horses for transport, and young people don't need watches to know the time. People living a few generations ago would never have imagined that the telephone (never mind email and texting) would completely eclipse the centuries-old tradition of writing letters. Picture-house/cinema customers in their millions never considered TV or radio as a threat. Even when computers first emerged commercially in the 1960s they remained purely a business/commercial tool for decades because no-one considered they could have a purpose for ordinary people. Now most children (other than those in genuine poverty) possess a smartphone which can outperform a business mainframe computer of the 1990s. So MOOCs - or something very similar - are very probably the long-term future of the main parts of higher/further education. MOOCs could also easily become very significant in teaching very young people. Young people find and use things that are useful, whether they are supposed to or not. The MOOC model will no doubt alter (probably financially, and the technology will become more sophisticated), but a big part of the future of higher/further education (for teachers and lecturers too) is online for sure. So perhaps we should begin thinking about what to do with all these university buildings everywhere.. They could help solve the homelessness problem, for example. (It is maybe not wholly coincidental that MOOC finds itself very close in dictionary listings and glossaries to MOODLE below, which is a closely related and often integrated system within the MOOC concept.)
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