MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES IN THE CONTEXT OF MODERN EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES WITHIN UNIVERSITIES

Massive open online course (MOOC) is one of the most important and arguable phenomenon in modern educational environment of the last decade. Nowadays most leading world universities including Russian higher educational institutions are involved in MOOCs development. But because of a newness of this phenomenon most part of academic representatives and leaders has no inkling about the further development of them in educational environment. This paper looks on the key questions of massive open online course and its use within a university. Substantially, massive open online courses are considered as a part of modern education process at a university. The first part of the paper is dedicated to key features of the MOOC format and background of their application. We also highlight here a current stage of progress in open education environment and essential requirements of a modern learner in education in the context of globalization (such as massive teaching, growing necessity of lifelong learning and creation of knowledge sources). Moreover we express hypothesis about possible connection between exponentially growing amount of knowledge and MOOC phenomenon. The second part of the paper focuses on reasons of MOOCs use within higher educational institutions, various arguments in favor of and against the development and use of massive open online courses at higher schools and institutions. The third part of the paper is dedicated to the factors that are needed to be taking into account in the process of integrating massive open online courses as a part of a modern university curriculum. Based on studies and articles dedicated to massive open online courses, this paper supports the hypothesis that massive open online courses could not be integrated within university as autonomic part of its curricular but could be implemented as a part of web-facilitated and hybrid courses. The process of integration needs to consider such factors as university resources and a relevant role of the faculty department. The conclusive statement of this paper focuses on challenges which exist on the current stage of MOOCs use within higher educational institutions and acute questions which are desirable to be answered (such as mooc personalization, certification and effectiveness evaluation in curricula of higher schools). The data presented in this paper could be useful for academic representatives and leaders in planning and discussing MOOC introduction into the curricula of universities and colleges.

Keywords

Authors

References