Massively open online course

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Revision as of 15:28, 29 August 2014 by imported>Christine Bush (Added refs with links to external sites. Included a sentence re: Siemens, Downes.)
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Massively open online courses (MOOCs) are an emergent educational platform which delivers content online and are made freely available to anyone wishing to take them. In order to receive accreditation for taking a MOOC, however, a student may need to pay a fee or be registered with a traditional educational institution such as a college. Well known MOOC platforms are edX[1] from MIT, Coursera[2], and uDacity[3]. There are also MOOC platforms not sponsored by traditional educational institutions or commercial interests such as P2PU[4] or School of Data[5]. George Siemens and Stephen Downes, proponents of the educational learning theory Connectivism, made key contributions and facilitated some of the first MOOCs.