According to a recent study by Class Central, already more than 81 million people enrolled for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in 2017. More than 50% came with career-oriented motives, for example upgrading their skills for their current or a new job. On top, more and more businesses are teaming up with universities and spin-offs (such as MOOC providers) to complement their HR programmes with MOOCs. Thus, we see a movement from traditional university settings to a professional lifelong learning context. At the same time, only a selected part of society (more educated learners with digital skills), universities (certain regions and those with stronger resources) and businesses (esp. the IT sector) seem to be aware of / profit from this free offer.
The BizMOOC project set out to further analyze this gap and provide a research-based guidance for those which are not part of the movement yet. This three-year endeavour resulted in an online resource called the MOOC BOOK (http://mooc-book.eu). The open textbook at hand is a selected presentation of content of the online version in a textbook format – it is designed to support learners, businesses and universities in their explorations of the world of MOOC.
We hope it gives you a head start in your 21st learning journey. Enjoy reading and learning!
Christian Friedl (Project Lead)
Rob Farrow (Volume Editor)
