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Do Massive Open Online Courses Offer a Viable Solution for Essential Problems in Higher Education?

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Technology in Education. Technology-Mediated Proactive Learning (ICTE 2015)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 559))

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Abstract

Higher education institutions have been suffering from serious problems for decades. Many reform programs have been implemented to overcome these problems. Some of the solutions have worked well but others have failed. As a promising initiative, the movement of massive open online courses (MOOCs) has generated enormous excitement among educators. Many prestigious universities have created educational partnerships and offered MOOCs worldwide. The market has been expanded with the joining of commercial establishments, and millions of students around the world have registered to such courses. However, the average completion rate is extremely low and a great majority the students attend these courses for enjoyment than for credentials. Similarly, almost none of the universities, which include the leading providers, do not recognize the credits earned through these courses for their diploma programs. There is also a serious concern that MOOCs may cause hegemony of the Ivy League institutions on other universities.

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Correspondence to Ali Simsek .

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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Simsek, A. (2015). Do Massive Open Online Courses Offer a Viable Solution for Essential Problems in Higher Education?. In: Lam, J., Ng, K., Cheung, S., Wong, T., Li, K., Wang, F. (eds) Technology in Education. Technology-Mediated Proactive Learning. ICTE 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 559. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48978-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-48978-9_13

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-662-48977-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-662-48978-9

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