Conceptualizing MOOCs Implementation for Higher Education in Developing Countries

Abstract

Today, more than ever, institutions of higher learning are recognizing the importance of integrating the use of information technology (ITs) to improve pedagogy and accountability needed for high quality education relevant for learners’ productive contribution to the society and economic development. Despite increasingly widespread adoption and use of IT in education, institutions of higher learning in many developing countries are still in a foundational stage of maturity. Much as e-learning and its applications like Massive online open courses (MOOCs) have been proven to overcome critical education challenges for better teaching and learning developing countries institutions are lagging behind. Some challenges are systemic and some related to the technologies themselves like poor infrastructure and low bandwidth, others are due to lack of scalability to meet the increased cost, training, and rigor required to leverage the technology. This paper sought to report on a contextualized framework for MOOCs implementation in developing countries.