Understanding Massive Open Online Courses

Abstract

In a critique of online learning in 2008, Brown observed that the ‘Open Educational Resources (OER) movement’ – the network of people who support the development and embedding of a culture of open sourcing, open resources, open knowledge, free sharing and peer collaboration in society – have assembled building blocks that allow the emergence of ‘open participatory learning ecosystems’. // This assemblage includes different types of resources that are part of the effort to extend and eliminate barriers of entry into university-level education. The most visible manifestations of these building blocks are Open Educational Resources (OER), OpenCourseWare (OCW) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)