MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses, defined by Brouns et al. (2014) as “an online course designed for large number of participants that can be accessed by anyone anywhere, as long as they have an internet connection, is open to everyone without entry qualifications and offers a full/complete course experience online for free”.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOCs) are offered online and (mostly) for free, providing open access to learning opportunities for all. However, contrasting definitions and interpretations of MOOCs exists. MOOCs have made headlines in higher education over the last years and generated a lot of discussion amongst educators, higher education institutions, government policy makers and private companies. No subject in educational technology in recent years has generated as much excitement and concern amongst the academic community as MOOCs. The media coverage, although somewhat diminishing, is huge compared to all other educational innovations in previous decades. It created interest of both private and public stakeholders resulting in serious investments.

Bates (2015) specifies the essential elements behind each acronym of MOOC. Common in these definitions are the following aspects to give meaning to the elements of a MOOC:

• Massive: designed for in theory unlimited number of participants. This means that the course is designed such that the efforts of all services does not increase significantly as the number of participants increases.
• Open: access to the course is free without entry qualifications.
• Online: the full course is available through the internet.
• Course: the offering is a course, meaning that it offers a complete learning experience, i.e. structured around a set of learning goals in a defined area of study and includes the course materials, quizzes, feedback, examination and certificate of completion.

The discussion is about what are essential definitions of each of those characteristics. For each of the elements different opinions are available.

• Open can be narrowed down to free availability only; learning materials are not available under an open license); not all MOOC are open accessible (e.g., age limit, sanctioned countries)
• Online can be limited to all learning materials are available online during course period and some elements of a MOOC are only available offline
• Course can be narrowed down to exclude a certificate or even exclude any form of (formative) assessment.

Consequently, some online courses are not MOOC according to the more strict definition.

International Context

Selwyn, Bulfin, & Pangrazio (2015) state that “MOOCs are courses available to masses of online learners for little or no cost”. The definition proposed by Wikipedia is more extended: “an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignment”.

However, these definitions are not strict and can be disputed. The Commonwealth of Learning (2015) proposes a definition that already includes some specification:: “A MOOC is an online course that requires no prior qualifications for entry, can be accessed by anyone who has an Internet connection, and includes large or very large numbers of learners”. However, this also creates some discussion related to prior qualifications needed for entry, but in many cases prior qualifications are necessary to understand and success in the course.

MOOCs and open education

MOOC can be seen as a form of open education offered free through online platforms. The (initial) philosophy of MOOCs is to open up quality higher education to a wider audience. However, although the concept of open education is often mentioned, it is not usually combined with a clear and solid description of what the term means. What “open” means in open education has been the subject of some debate (Open Education Handbook, 2014) and is increasingly becoming associated with the “free” element only. Note for example that the Open Education Consortium focusses its description to the free and open sharing in education.

In his book The Battle for Open, Weller (2014) gives an overview of the open movement, concluding that “adopting a single definition is ­counter-­productive” and that motivations for the open approach are the most important. In the traditional historical context open education is aimed at education for people with no or limited access to the educational system. In a somewhat broader context it is recognised that primarily open education is associated with removing barriers to education (Bates, 2015). Instead of providing a definition one could adopt the following statement related to the most common referred purpose of open education: The aim of open education is to increase access to and successful participation in education by removing barriers and offering multiple ways of learning and sharing knowledge.

This potential of open education was strongly marked by the Cape Town Open Education Declaration (Shuttleworth/OSF, 2008). Note that the above aim of open education is not related to barriers of access only (i.e., not only aimed at the entry barriers), but at all barriers along potential learning pathways.

In the context of MOOCs, online courses must be seen as a course that is offered fully online. If it’s not, then it’s a blended or hybrid course. The deciding factor should not be only related to the amount of course content offered online but all other course elements as well (i.e., study guide / syllabus, educational content, facilitation of (academic) interaction, activities/tasks, tests, including feedback, assessment and exam). As such even if a single in-person, on-campus class is scheduled and required, then the course is blended. Thus, MOOC learners rarely (if ever) need to step on campus.

Differences between MOOC and other online learning

In relation to the MOOC definition it is essential to understand the differences with other educational provision. For example MOOC differ from ‘regular’ online courses in at least four aspects

• MOOC are designed for in theory unlimited number of participants and as such requires the scalability of the education services.
• It is accessible at no charge.
• It requires no entry qualifications
• All elements of course provision are provided fully online

Consequently different acronyms for different kind of online or blended courses are proposed:

• SPOC (Small Private Online Courses)
• ROOC (Regional Open Online Course)
• TORQUE (Tiny, Open-with-Restrictions courses focused on QUality and Effectiveness)
• DOCCs (Distributed Open Collaborative Course)
• SMOC (Synchronous Massive Online Course)
• MOORs (Massive Open Online Research
• OOC (Open Online Course)

Some of the above abbreviations might even not be characterised as online courses as they require attendance on campus. The above type of online courses differ from MOOCs by some essential elements, mainly they limit the number of participants. Note that these type of online course can, for part, still be open by removing some barriers to education but are not necessarily open to everyone. As such, they are still contributing to the opening of education for all by designing a course to a limited by still multiple target group.

Authenticity and MOOC

Although there are different definitions, open and online education are recognized as underlying principles behind MOOCs. What’s unique about a MOOC is partly related to the embracing of both the open (for free, no-entry requirements – open to everyone) and online component of education. The scalability and massive dimension seems the main driver behind the MOOC movement. There is no precise number to define “massive” and it might even depend on characteristics like the number of people speaking the language of the MOOC offered. It’s generally agreed that in MOOCs the number of participants is larger than can be taught in a ‘normal’ campus class room and that the design of the MOOC is scalable (‘designed for in theory unlimited number of participants’). In this context the definition as agreed on by many European MOOC initiatives (Jansen et al, 2015) seems to be the most operational, also as it defines various criteria for an open and online course to be considered a MOOC.

Due to the success of MOOCs many other (often similar) abbreviations are used. Consequently, MOOCs and the term ‘open’ are also misused to boost sales and increase funding. Other parties with more private and commercial intentions are increasingly using these kinds of hype words to sell their products or to get additional funding for their efforts:  commercial and private products are labelled as MOOCs in order to boost sales despite failing to comply with the criteria – definition of MOOCs let alone to comply with their initial goals. The term used for these practices is called ‘MOOCwashing’ (Bell, 2012) comparable with ‘openwashing’ and ‘greenwashing’, which is when environmentally unfriendly products are positioned as green and eco-friendly in order to boost sales (Weller, 2014).  Notwithstanding these caveats about the authenticity of open approaches, it’s important to retain the idea that openness is a key element that distinguishes MOOC from elearning more generally.