The social dimension of European MOOC response: making diversity a strength!

Abstract

The MOOC hype in the media might be over, but investment and uptake of MOOCs are increasing significantly worldwide. By the end of 2015, approximately 4,200 courses were offered by 500+ universities to 35 million students. This has increased by 2016 to 6,850 courses by over 700 universities to 58 million students (Class Central, 2016). However, these figures exclude many European MOOC offering as Class Central mainly list MOOC offering of the big (commercial) MOOC platforms. Many European universities have built an own platform or use a regional platform with a limited visibility. Most universities are not accepted by the big MOOC platforms in the US by lacking the reputation (in ranking) and finances to become a partner. As such, European efforts in MOOCs are less visible. Also the efforts of OpenEducationEuropa (European MOOCs Scoreboard, 2015) were incomplete and stopped in 2016. Consequently, also research data about MOOC participants, needs in society, etc. are strongly biased towards US dominance and lack evidence what really is going on in Europe. As many European MOOC efforts are local, there is a lack of coherent research at a European level. Only recently some efforts at European scale were conducted These results indicate a distinct European uptake of MOOCs related to different needs. This paper elaborates on the European context of the MOOC uptake based on various European MOOC research and discusses various strategies to increase awareness, visibility and collaboration.