What's a MOOC?
MOOC stands for "Massive Open Online Course." MOOCs are distinguished by being free, open to anyone, and able to accommodate large numbers of students. Beyond these defining characteristics, MOOCs take many forms.
Duke University Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong has prepared a short video titled the "10 steps to developing an online course."
Contents of this site:
Ideas for completing a MOOC
Who completes MOOCs?
Questions from the faculty
MOOCs in the news
Communications to faculty
Glossary
Who provides MOOCS?
MOOC providers are divided between for-profit corporations and not-for-profit organizations. edX, begun as a partnership between MIT and Harvard, leads the not-for-profit MOOC space. The leading for-profit providers are Coursera and Udacity, both founded by Stanford University faculty. Individual colleges and universities may choose to provide smaller-scale MOOCs.
Companies such a Google have developed free software that can be used to create a MOOC.
MOOCs vary in quality and topic; most focus on sciences, math and technology, with humanities courses increasingly available. Here are links to a few:
edX 101
edX 101 explores and outlines the process of creating an edX course, and is built on the edX platform. If you have already created an edX account, you will be required to create a new one specifically for edX 101.
Who Served on the MOOC/edX Committee?
Jack Cheney (Chair) Associate Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Geology
Jun Ishii Associate Professor of Economics
Scott Kaplan Professor of Computer Science
Jill Miller Associate Professor of Biology
Samuel Morse Professor of Art History and Asian Languages
Marisa Parham Associate Professor of English
Austin Sarat Professor of Political Science and LJST
Adam Sitze Assistant Professor of LJST
Gayle Barton Chief Information Officer
Select a member to send them an email
What schools are members of edx?
Begun in 2012 by Harvard and MIT, edX has expanded to 28 institutions around the globe. View edX member institutions.