The popularity of massive open online courses (MOOC) has been growing in recent years. Some experts even talk about these courses as the future of adult education. Can MOOC be used in corporate training as well? This question was recently addressed on the British website Training Magazine.The answer is, of course, yes. The potential of MOOC is certainly huge.
What is MOOC
Massive open online courses are available to all Internet users, usually for free. They are offered by a wide range of providers, from individual enthusiasts to prestigious companies and universities. The course itself includes video lectures and other textual or audiovisual content, knowledge tests, discussions and study groups.
The course usually lasts several weeks. After completing the course, it is possible to obtain a certificate, which you often have to pay for. Some courses, which are part of university or professional studies, are rated by the credits students can collect. In the corporate environment, MOOCs can be used in basically three ways:
1. Publicly available courses
Organizations can motivate their employees to independently chose courses on public platforms such as Coursera, EdX (courses provided by leading world universities), Alison or Udacity (non-university courses). However, strong support has to be provided to employees so that they persevere with their studies. You can, for example, connect them with other people who have already completed similar courses. There are simple mobile applications that bring students together online.
2. Integration of MOOC principles into corporate training
The basic MOOC content include texts, videos and simple animations, short tasks, knowledge tests and social features such as discussions. All this is relatively easy to create on the educational platforms that already exist in companies - websites, intranets or corporate social networks. The question is only whether companies can get quality content for these tools that will bring beneficial experiences for employees and measurable benefits for the company.
3. Your own courses
Custom-made MOOCs can be beneficial mainly for larger companies that have many employees in different locations. MOOCs can be used not only for employees, but also companies can get their business partners and customers involved in studying MOOCs (and subsequently obtain interesting data about them).
Do you have any personal experience with MOOC - in your private life or in your company?
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