Proximity Effect in Disciplinary and Regional Development of MOOCs: From a Course Network Perspective

Abstract

There has been a shift from a few pioneering institutions to a far larger number of conventional universities in a wider range of countries engaged in designing online education. In light of the fact that online education is a phenomenon that occurs on a global scale, it is necessary for us to investigate the manner in which these practices were carried out by adopting an international and systematic point of view. This study uses complex network analytics to map out the worldwide landscape of massive open online courses (MOOCs) from a disciplinary and regional viewpoint, drawing reference from the product space and comparative advantage theories from the field of development economics. The study found that the course space of global MOOCs presents diversity and cooperation. Ultimately, the courses provided by universities and colleges are consistent with the proximity principle and are fairly comparable to the University's comparative advantage disciplines. There is a positive correlation between a region's level of economic development and the rate at which MOOCs are being offered. Strong advantages persist for North America and Western Europe. Differences in the level of development of MOOCs between nations are most pronounced in computer science and other cutting-edge disciplines. When it comes to the overall strategy for implementing MOOCs, different nations are moving at varying rates of speed. It has been found that the way subjects are spread out and how close they are to each other in the course space can make it harder to upgrade the MOOC curriculum.