An Overview on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as an Elearning Platform: A Review

Abstract

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have peaked in popularity with the vast improvement in technology with minimum infrastructure to connect to the Internet, thereby allowing learners to access the massive number of courses available through accredited universities and academic institutes. Coursera, edX, Udacity are some of the platforms in MOOCs that enable learners to get certified and gain knowledge in relevant fields. This paper focuses on signifying the importance of assessing the ideal effectiveness of the MOOCs platform, while conducting a review and identifying motives to enrol, pros and cons, and factors to drop out of MOOCs. The authors have identified four research questions in relation to the above facts in concern regarding the MOOCs platform, and a literature review has been carried out in this study by addressing the said research questions. The results of this review suggest that there exist multiple motives for the learners to enrol in MOOCs, and there is also a considerable attrition rate of the MOOCs learners from those courses. The reasons to drop out of MOOCs is therefore a significant area that must be discussed, and there are both pros and cons of this e-learning platform. Further, there is no proper method to assess the effectiveness of MOOCs and therefore, such an assessing procedure is a timely need, due to the fact that it is an online education platform, where individuals can gain access to plenty of courses available, irrespective of geographical boundaries and time constraints.