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MOOCs: What Motivates the Producers and Participants?

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Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2014)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 510))

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Abstract

Within the current educational landscape, Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have stimulated extensive interest and hype in a short time. It has been asserted that these open courses are no more than a prelude to the disruption that traditional Higher Education Institutions will experience from the growth of on-line education. Meanwhile, institutions are making increasingly significant investments to produce MOOCs, and learners are enthusiastically enrolling in large numbers, often in tens of thousands. The analysis presented identifies a spectrum of motivating factors for universities, and suggests likely areas for future attention and developments. It further identifies a range of motivations for learner participation, which may not be identical across cultures and which MOOC providers might wish to take into account.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the work and enthusiasm of Olja Rastic Dulborough and Maraim Masoud two students who worked on internships in the Centre for Innovation in Technologies and Education (CITE) for the summer vacation of 2013, and intern Edmund Baird for subsequent input in 2014. We would also like to acknowledge the respondents who freely gave time to reply to our survey.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Innovation in Technologies and Education, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, UK

    Su White, Hugh Davis, Kate Dickens & Manuel León

  2. Department of Didactics and School Organisation, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain

    Ma Mar Sánchez-Vera

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  1. Su White
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  4. Manuel León
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  5. Ma Mar Sánchez-Vera
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Correspondence to Su White .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA

    Susan Zvacek

  2. Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal

    Maria Teresa Restivo

  3. School of Engineering, University of Ulster, Newtownabbey, Ireland

    James Uhomoibhi

  4. School of Computing, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Markus Helfert

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White, S., Davis, H., Dickens, K., León, M., Sánchez-Vera, M.M. (2015). MOOCs: What Motivates the Producers and Participants?. In: Zvacek, S., Restivo, M., Uhomoibhi, J., Helfert, M. (eds) Computer Supported Education. CSEDU 2014. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 510. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25768-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25768-6_7

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