MOOCS - TRANSFORMATION OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION PARADIGM
MOOCS - TRANSFORMATION OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION PARADIGM

Author(s): Mariya Monova-Zheleva, Yanislav Zhelev
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Economy, Education, Business Economy / Management, Higher Education , ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: Бургаски свободен университет
Keywords: moocs; higher education
Summary/Abstract: The Digital era has set new standards in our everyday life and work. To match the standards, the people of the Information society have to develop completely new skills and knowledge quickly. The rapid change of technology does not offer time to waste and everyone is required to race with it in order to keep their jobs and position and moreover to achieve successful carrier development [1] Alongside e-learning and open educational resources, massive open online courses (MOOCs) recently emerged in the higher education (HE) landscape providing additional learning opportunities for individuals, education institutions and academic staff. MOOCs are a paradigm that revolutionized corporate training and vocational education, providing opportunities for free education without preconditions or/and special conditions for learners. In this paper are discussed the problems associated with the development of such courses reflecting the specifics of the subject area, its dimensions and peculiarities in Bulgaria. The article presents some results obtained in the framework of a large-scale study conducted by the BizMOOC project [2], covering 106 qualitative interviews with experts from European organizations and Higher Education Institutions and 1193 survey responses from society/learners. Special attention is paid to the MOOC's potential for providing relevant, cost-effective, and flexible solutions for university training. The main results of the needs and gaps analysis are briefly presented in the context of the MOOCs related opportunities and challenges faced by the higher education institutions.

• Details
• Contents