What Is a MOOC? AND Why I Recommend Them

MOOC (/muːk/) stands for massive open online courses.    

A massive open online course is an online aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web.  In addition to traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and assignments, many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions among students, professors and teaching assistants. MOOCs were first introduced in 2008 and have become increasingly popular.  

According to The New York Times, 2012 became “the year of the MOOC” as several well-financed providers, associated with top universities, emerged, including Coursera, edX, and Udacity.

There are dozens of participating universities including Stanford, Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Caltech, the University of Texas at Austin, Duke, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan, the University of California at Berkeley, Georgia Tech, Dartmouth, Wellesley College, Australian National University, Boston University, Sorbonne, University of Maryland and Georgetown University.

Many MOOC offerings are free or inexpensively priced.   Some are self-paced.

From Lynn Lubell, Founder of Admission By Design: I encourage my students, who complete MOOCs, to include them on their resumes and activity lists and/or additional information section.  Self-learning can show initiative, motivation, and intellectual vitality.  

Below are links to five popular sites for MOOC learning:

• Coursera 
• edX
• Khan Academy
• MIT Open Courseware

Some Popular MOOCs

• The Science of Well-Being by Yale University | Coursera
• Highlights for High School | MIT OpenCourseWare | Free Online Course Materials
• CS50’s Introduction to Computer Science | edX
• Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) | Coursera
• Introduction to Aerospace Engineering: Astronautics and Human Spaceflight | edX
• Calculus 1A: Differentiation | edX
• Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life | Coursera

Lynn Lubell

Written by: Lynn Radlauer Lubell, Publisher of InLikeMe.com and Founder of Admission By Design, an Educational Consultancy based in Boca Raton, Florida.