Study on Massive Open Online Courses in Universities

Abstract

Distance learning is becoming more and more important, not only because of the current worldwide pandemic, but also because it provides learning opportunities for students, who are separated from universities by distance. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) are a way of teaching at distance, which has been used for several years. These are online courses that can be used by anyone, anywhere, as long as there is a stable internet connection. Higher Education Institutions have been offering these courses for years in some cases, and in others this way of teaching is being refused. This study investigates the motivations and the current situation at German universities regarding the use of MOOCs. It shows that universities use very different motivations and strategies to use platforms for online teaching or even to develop them themselves. Some of the universities have already been offering courses online for some time, while others have no plans to do so in the future. Many Higher Education Institutions even cooperate with each other to increase the quality of teaching or to reduce costs. For the study, 129 universities in Germany were surveyed and a literature research on this topic was conducted.