Abstract-MOOC or 'Massive Open Online Courses' is the recent phenomenon in the education industry with the proliferation of players such as Coursera, Udacity, NovoEd, EdX, and Khan Academy. MOOCs are free to students, and open to anyone globally (regardless of age, and qualifications); hence, a course might attract thousands to tens of thousands of registrants. MOOC providers entice students with snappy, high professional quality, short instructional videos that communicate learning content succinctly. Currently, MOOCs are offered in partnerships with ivy-league universities and professors. Our paper ascertains whether this MOOC-phenomenon pose a threat or opportunity to the less-endowed and/or public colleges and universities. We discuss strategic business and pedagogical models of MOOC providers and universities, as well as competitive threats and partnership opportunities with MOOC's proliferation.
Index Terms-Flipped classroom, learning management systems, massive open online course (MOOC), university partnerships.
I. INTRODUCTION AND RESEARCH QUESTIONSMOOC or "Massive Open Online Courses" is the recent phenomenon in the education industry where entrepreneurship, venture capital infusion, and IT pioneering are not the norm. Coursera, a MOOC platform and content provider, in late 2013, landed another $20 million in funding, bringing the total venture investment in Coursera to $63 million [1]. Even non-profit institutions, namely, Harvard and MIT, have teamed up on an initial $60 million investment to start edX to offer MOOCs. Coursera has attracted 5 million students while edX has over 1.3 million registrants [2]. What made these MOOCs attractive is that the online classes are free to students. The completely online delivery format (which already comes with some pros over face-to-face classroom lectures), and the absence of prerequisites (e.g., evidence of foundation/basic knowledge on the subject, or educational credentials) and no age limitations have also contributed to the millions of students MOOC-style course have amassed. The free Artificial-Intelligence course taught by two Stanford professors (where Stanford"s students who signed up for the equivalent course on campus would be allowed to attend this MOOC in lieu of attending the face-to-face-classes) attracted 160,000 students in 190 nations [3].Adding to the appeal of MOOCs is the content delivery format. Taking the cue from the success of Khan Academy, MOOC providers entice students with snappy, high Manuscript received March 9, 2014; revised May 17, 2014. Beng Soo Ong and Ani Grigoryan are with Craig School of Business, California State University, Fresno, USA (e-mail: bengo@csufresno.edu).professional quality instructional videos that communicate learning content succinctly without exceeding today"s student attention span thresholds. In a typical 8-to 12-minute video, online students would be prompted two to three times to take interactive quizzes to make sure they understand the material before continuing with the lesson [4]. Students interact, ...