What Are MOOC Platforms?
Students enroll in Massive Open Online Course through MOOC platforms. These course providers function as central hubs and hosting services for class instructors and institutions, making their courses available to the public. As a result, the talented individuals who create these courses do not have to worry about marketing their courses or maintaining the servers necessary for the large number of students who enroll in their classes.
These MOOC providers work to create certificate programs that contribute to the validity of the MOOC course format as an education platform. In some cases, these organizations will even help to create a curriculum that links several different institutions together. An example of such a program would be Coursera’s Mobile Cloud Computing program, which offers a Specialization Certificate to students who complete four courses offered through the University of Maryland and Vanderbilt University.
Since the MOOC moment of 2012, the number of platforms available online has grown substantially. While the original commercial MOOC providers, like Coursera and Udacity, and non-profit platforms like the Khan Academy and edX, remain prevalent, a number of new MOOC initiatives have emerged recently. These platforms are beginning to address specific untapped niches. For example, MOOEC, launched November 2013, is specifically designed to offer Massive Open Online Courses to English as a Second Language (ESL) students.
These new platforms not only offer courses from different academic institutions, but often times also offer alternative forms of professional training. In other words, MOOCs have also become a vocational training service for career-driven individuals. An example of such a platform would be Udemy.com, which offers experts of any kind the opportunity to create a course on their platform. Long-running platform Udacity has also transitioned into this niche.
The Most Prominent MOOC Providers
The four most well-known MOOC providers are Coursera, Udacity, the Khan Academy, and edX.
For-Profit Providers
Founded in 2012, Coursera is the largest MOOC platform in the world with a total of 9.2 million users. Started by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller of Stanford University, the website is now partnered with over 111 institutions. Offering academic courses on a variety of subject matters in several languages, the classes completed through this MOOC provider can even be used to receive college credit at Antioch University in Los Angeles, California.
Although there remains a great deal of skepticism regarding the effectiveness of MOOCs, Coursera’s progress could work to eliminate some of the concerns surrounding the education platform. Five Coursera courses have received college accreditation, including Algebra from the University of California, Irvine and Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach from Duke University. The provider also offers a variety of certificate and specialization programs.
While Udacity once aimed to compete with Coursera’s academic course offerings, the 1.6 million user MOOC platform now offers vocational courses for tech professionals. For example, students can enroll in the “NanoDegree” program offered in conjunction with telecommunications corporation AT&T to work towards developing the skills necessary for a job with the company.
Like Coursera, Udacity has also worked to offer certifications and accreditations for its course offerings. Students who complete CS101 through Udacity can take a proctored exam to receive a certification, one which Colorado State University will offer college credit for if the exam is taken at a testing facility. Georgia Tech has also collaborated with the MOOC platform to develop a master’s degree in computer science program.
Non-Profit Providers
Founded in 2012 and owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, edX provides free courses from 53 different organizations. The website’s purpose is not only to offer these courses to the public, but also to research how individuals learn in a MOOC environment. The website has also partnered with Stanford, Google, Xuetang, and France Université Numérique.
Like Coursera, edX’s courses address a variety of academic subject matters at the university level, including mathematics, business management, and the social sciences. However, edX recently began a High School Initiative program through which students can prepare for Advanced Placement (AP) examinations or simply better their skills in a variety of areas.
The Khan Academy was founded in 2006 by Salman Khan, well before the MOOC moment itself began. Not only that, but Khan himself does not consider his website to be such a platform. The academy offers thousands of videos and assessments for its users to complete, ranging from kindergarten-level math to multivariable calculus.
Not only does the Khan Academy offer a variety of course offerings, but the MOOC platform also provides access materials from a variety of other institutions. For example, visitors of the website can access content provided by The British Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, the Asian Art Museum, the All-Star Orchestra, and The Brookings Institution.
Other MOOC Providers
While the four MOOC platforms discussed above remain the leaders of the movement, several other platforms have emerged that offer a variety of different courses to its users.
On Udemy, any subject matter can enroll to teach a course through the platform. The website has served over three million students enrolled in 18,000 courses. While many of these courses require a one-time fee, several are also available at no charge to the user.
While students can still enroll in both academic and vocational courses through the site, the MOOC platform also offers courses for lifestyle improvement. For example, students can enroll in poker and chess courses if they wish to improve their gameplay. Likewise, students can also improve their cooking and baking skills through a variety of courses.
OneMonth offers, as the name suggests, thirty day courses the enable users to develop the technical skills necessary for a new position. The teachable skils include HTML, CSS, the Ruby on Rails web application framework, and JavaScript. The course platform has received recognition from organizations such as Google and Bloomberg.
Choosing A MOOC Provider
Picking the right MOOC platform to suit your needs comes down to identifying your short and long-term learning goals. Individuals interested in taking MOOCs can now find a course for virtually all of their areas of interest. Whether you’re looking to absorb college course materials, develop new job-related skills, or learn new things about your hobbies, you should be able to find a MOOC provider that fits your needs.