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.
Beng Soo Ong and Ani Grigoryan are with Craig School of Business,
California State University, Fresno, USA (e-mail: bengo@csufresno.edu).
Cite: Beng Soo Ong and Ani Grigoryan, "MOOCs and Universities: Competitors or Partners?," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 373-376, 2015.