Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

It is time to MOOC and SPOC in the Gulf Region

  • Published:
Education and Information Technologies Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this paper we will explain massive open online courses (MOOCs)-how they started, their targeted audience, and what services they provide- and demonstrate selected MOOC service providers that best suit the Arabian Gulf region. The record annual growth for MOOCs has made many respected institutions reconsider their educational strategies. Many elite universities have started to join the stream; others are expected to join very soon. In this paper we will focus on select MOOC providers that will help institutions or individual instructors ride the stream before it is too late. All MOOC providers have been carefully selected to meet the author’s criteria of either having crossed a capacity range limit or being tailored to meet the Arabian Gulf region needs. Finally, the paper summarizes the best practices and gives recommendations for any Gulf region institution or individual for better implementation of MOOCs into their learning system.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abedi, M., & Beikverdi, A. (2012). Rise of massive open online courses. Paper presented at the Engineering Education (ICEED), 2012 4th International Congress on.

  • Agarwal, A. (2013). MOOCs for the Arab world. Retrieved from https://www.edx.org/blog/moocs-arab-world.

  • Alexa. (2015). Ranking. Retrieved from http://www.alexa.com/about.

  • Ally, M. (2009). Mobile learning: Transforming the delivery of education and training. Canada: Athabasca University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chung, C. (2015). MOOC vision refinement for 2015. Retrieved from https://docsend.com/view/w28pymq.

  • Coursera. (2014). Our student numbers. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/about/community.

  • Coursera.com. (2016). Retrieved from www.Coursera.com

  • Daradoumis, T., Bassi, R., Xhafa, F., & Caballe, S. (2013). A review on massive e-learning (MOOC) design, delivery and assessment. Paper presented at the P2P, Parallel, Grid, Cloud and Internet Computing (3PGCIC), 2013 Eighth International Conference on.

  • de la Croix, J. P., & Egerstedt, M. (2014). Flipping the controls classroom around a MOOC. Paper presented at the American Control Conference (ACC), 2014.

  • Delgado Kloos, C., Munoz-Merino, P. J., Munoz-Organero, M., Alario-Hoyos, C., Perez-Sanagustin, M., Parada G, H. A., Ruiperez, J. A., &Sanz, J. L. (2014). Experiences of running MOOCs and SPOCs at UC3M. Paper presented at the Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2014 IEEE.

  • Dennen, V. (2014). SMOOC. Retrieved from http://vanessadennen.com/tag/smooc/.

  • Dennen, V., & Chauhan, A. (2013). Shall we MOOC?: A SWOT analysis at the program level (Vol. 1, pp. 17–21). New Rochelle: Mary Ann Liebert Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Di, C., Yunping, F., Zihao, Z., Jianwei, J., & Jianbo, Y. (2014). Does MOOC really work effectively. Paper presented at the MOOC, Innovation and Technology in Education (MITE), 2014 I.E. International Conference on.

  • DLGCC. (2016). The secretariat of the distance learning committee. Retrieved from http://dlgcc.ku.edu.kw/about.html.

  • Edraak.org. (2016). Retrieved from www.Edraak.org.

  • edX.org. (2016). Retrieved from www.edX.org

  • Fini, A. (2009). The technological dimension of a massive open online course: the case of the CCK08 course tools. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(5).

  • Glenda Morgan, J.-M. L. (2015). Three ways MOOCs have changed higher education. (G00275802). Gartner.

  • Harris, M. (2013). Higher education must prepare for the growing influence of MOOCs (G00249123). Retrieved from

  • Hollands, F. M., & Tirthali, D. (2014). Resource requirements and costs of developing and delivering MOOCs. IRRODL, 15(5).

  • Iqbal, S., Xizhe, Z., Yanhe, Z., Yan Yan, C., & Jie, Z. (2014). On the impact of MOOCs on engineering education. Paper presented at the MOOC, Innovation and Technology in Education (MITE), 2014 I.E. International Conference on.

  • Kay, J., Reimann, P., Diebold, E., & Kummerfeld, B. (2013). MOOCs: so many learners, so much potential. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 28(3), 70–77. doi:10.1109/MIS.2013.66.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Leckart, S. (2012). The Stanford education experiment could change higher learning forever. WIRED.

  • Lowendahl, J.-M., Thayer, T.-L. B., Harris, M, & Rust, B. (2014). Top 10 business trends impacting education in 2015 (G00266978). Retrieved from

  • Markoff, J. (2011). Virtual and artificial, but 58,000 Want Course. The New York Times, A11.

  • Martinez-Munoz, G., & Pulido, E. (2015). Using a SPOC to flip the classroom. Paper presented at the Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2015 IEEE.

  • Melton, J. H., Miller, R. E., & Kumar, A. (2014). (Un)bundled services: a stakeholder’s framework for understanding the impact of MOOC-like, third-party online courses. Paper presented at the System Sciences (HICSS), 2014 47th Hawaii International Conference on.

  • Morgan, G. (2015). Three ways that changes in e-learning are impacting learning management systems (G00272716). Retrieved from.

  • Mutawa, A. (2015a). Retrieved from www.udemy.com/cplusplus.

  • Mutawa, A. (2015b). Retrieved from www.nadrus.com/c/262.

  • nadrus.com. (2016). Retrieved from www.nadrus.com.

  • Nathaniel Ostashewski, D. R. (2012). Delivering a MOOC using a social networking site: the SMOOC design model. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the IADIS international conference on internet technologies and society (ITS 2012), Perth: IADIS.

  • Peterson, R. (2013). What do MOOCS cost? Minding the Campus.

  • Pirkle, H. (2014). Arabic MOOC platform Edraak launches to bring quality education to the region. Wamda Research Lab.

  • Rwaq. (2015). Rwaq.org May 2015 Report. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bw8_y5U-EVVMN0N2Skx0ZnJEd1k/edit.

  • rwaq.org. (2016). Retrieved from www.rwaq.org.

  • Sadhasivam, J. (2014). Educational paradigm shift: are we ready to adopt MOOC? International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, 9(4), 50–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shah, D. (2015). MOOC tracker—never miss a course. Retrieved from https://www.class-central.com/report/mooc-tracker/.

  • Siemsen, S., & Jansen, R. (2014) Connectivism and interactionism reloaded knowledge networks in the cloud: a theoretical approach to a shift in learning through connectivism and MOOCs. In Vol. 446 CCIS. Communications in Computer and Information Science (pp. 1–12).

  • Stuchlikova, L., & Kosa, A. (2013). Massive open online courses—challenges and solutions in engineering education. Paper presented at the Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA), 2013 I.E. 11th International Conference on.

  • Tovar, E., Dimovska, A., Piedra, N., & Chicaiza, J. (2013). OCW-S: enablers for building sustainable open education evolving OCW and MOOC. Paper presented at the Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON), 2013 IEEE.

  • Udacity. (2016). Udacity partners with Google and Egypt. Retrieved from https://www.udacity.com/egypt.

  • Udacity.com. (2016). Retrieved from www.Udacity.com.

  • Udemy.com. (2016). Retrieved from www.Udemy.com.

  • Vaibhav, A., & Gupta, P. (2014). Gamification of MOOCs for increasing user engagement. Paper presented at the MOOC, Innovation and Technology in Education (MITE), 2014 I.E. International Conference on.

  • Wenge, G. (2014). From SPOC to MPOC—the effective practice of Peking University online teacher training. Paper presented at the 2014 International Conference of Educational Innovation through Technology (EITT),.

  • Wilson, L., & Gruzd, A. (2014). MOOCs—international information and education phenomenon? Bulletin of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 40, 35–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu, K. (2013). One year, 27 schools, 1 million enrollments. The Tech, 133.

  • Yanxia, P., Tong, W., & Na, W. (2014). MOOC data from providers. Paper presented at the Enterprise Systems Conference (ES), 2014.

  • Zirger, B. J., Rutz, E., Boyd, D., Tappel, J., & Subbian, V. (2014). Creating pathways to higher education: a cross-disciplinary MOOC with graduate credit. Paper presented at the Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC), 2014 IEEE.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Engineering Department, Kuwait University, Kuwait, Kuwait

    A. M. Mutawa

Authors
  1. A. M. Mutawa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. M. Mutawa.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the authors.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Glossary of terms

AI:

Artificial Intelligence

FTF:

Face-to-face

IT:

Information Technology

LMS:

Learning Management System

MIT:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MOOC:

Massive Open Online Course

MPOC:

Massive Private Online Course

SPOC:

Small Private Online Course

UAE:

United Arab Emirates

VLE:

Virtual Learning Environment

Appendix 2: Tables

Table 1 Top 16 countries from which visitors to Corsera.org are originated based on Alexa listing
Full size table
Table 2 Top 10 countries from which visitors to edx.org are originated based on Alexa listing
Full size table
Table 3 Top 10 countries from which visitors to udacity.com are originated based on Alexa listing
Full size table
Table 4 Top 10 countries from which visitors to udemy.com are originated based on Alexa listing
Full size table
Table 5 Top 5 countries from which visitors to Eddrak.org are originated based on Alexa listing
Full size table
Table 6 Top 5 countries from which visitors to nadrus.com are originated based on Alexa listing
Full size table
Table 7 Top 5 countries from which visitors to rwaq.org are originated based on Alexa listing
Full size table
Table 8 Comparison table for all MOOC providers discussed in this paper
Full size table

Appendix 3: Figures

Fig. 1
figure 1

The Growth of MOOCs in terms of number of started courses (Shah 2015)

Full size image
Fig. 2
figure 2

Rice University specialized track on fundamentals of computing via Coursera

Full size image
Fig. 3
figure 3

instructor interface at Udemy.com to add a new recourse to a lecture

Full size image
Fig. 4
figure 4

Sample feedback given by Udemy.com staff members on a course I’ve created. Feedback is categorized based on the response and problem status

Full size image
Fig. 5
figure 5

Nadrus.com instructor interface for adding a new resource for a lecture

Full size image
Fig. 6
figure 6

Alexa ranking of coursera.org, edX.org, udacity.com and udemy.com for the past 2 years

Full size image
Fig. 7
figure 7

Rank comparison over time for the past 2 years between edraak.org, menaversity.com, nadrus.com and rwaq.org

Full size image
Fig. 8
figure 8

Audience demography of edraak.org

Full size image
Fig. 9
figure 9

Audience demography of rwaq.org

Full size image

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mutawa, A.M. It is time to MOOC and SPOC in the Gulf Region. Educ Inf Technol 22, 1651–1671 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-016-9502-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-016-9502-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation