scholarly journals MOOCs in the Developing World: Hope or Hype?

2015 ◽  
pp. 23-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben Wildavsky
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Technology ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Quality Education ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Massive Open Online ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Underserved Students ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
High Quality Education

The advent of massive open online courses was accompanied by bold claims about their potential to democratize access to high-quality education in poor countries. But critics contend that MOOCs have come nowhere near meeting those expectations. Most students already have degrees and live in developing countries, and only a small percentage complete their courses. Still, in absolute numbers MOOCs provide opportunities to many underserved students in the developing world. This is likely to continue as MOOCs evolve to provide blended learning and to take advantage of mobile technology. MOOCs should be viewed as an experiment, a fast-changing form of technology-enabled pedagogy that is likely to do far more good than harm in poor countries.

scholarly journals A supply sided analysis of leading MOOC platforms and universities

2016 ◽  
pp. 158-181
Keyword(s):  
Online Courses ◽  
Quality Education ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Quality Education ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Promising Strategy ◽  
The Uk

Investing in education is generally considered as a promising strategy to fight poverty and increase prosperity. This applies to all levels of an economy reaching from individuals to local communities and countries and has a global perspective as well. However, high-quality education is often costly and not available anytime anywhere. Therefore, any promising concept that might help to democratize education is worth pursuing, in a sense that it makes education accessible for everybody without any restrictions. The characteristics attributed to MOOC – Massive Open Online Courses are promising to contribute to this objective. Hence, our objective is to analyse MOOC as it currently operates. Obviously, there is a huge demand for free high-quality education anytime anywhere but a shortage on the supply side. So, we will concentrate on supply-sided effects and study MOOC platforms as well as content providers, particularly universities. We focus our research on some of the leading platforms and universities worldwide. Relative to their size Australia and the Netherlands are very active players in the MOOC sector. Germany is lagging behind and leading universities in the UK seem to virtually refrain from offering MOOC. Our research also shows the leading role of US universities and platform providers.

scholarly journals Massive open online courses on biomedical informatics

F1000Research ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 180
Author(s):  
Cender Udai Quispe-Juli ◽  
Victor Hugo Moquillaza-Alcántara ◽  
Katherine Arapa-Apaza
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Observational Study ◽  
Data Science ◽  
Developing World ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Biomedical Informatics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Massive Open Online

This study aimed to identify the characteristics of massive open online courses (MOOCs) related to biomedical informatics offered in several plataforms. We conducted an observational study on specialized MOOCs platforms to find courses related to biomedical informatics, in 2018. Our search identified 67 MOOCs on biomedical informatics. The majority of MOOCs were offered by Coursera (71.6%, 48/67), English was the most common language (95.5%, 64/67). The United States developed the majority of courses (73.1%, 49/67), with the vast majority of MOOCs being offered by universities (94%, 63/67). The majority of MOOCs were in bioinformatics (56.7%, 38/67) and data science (47.7%, 32/67). In conclusion, the MOOCs on biomedical informatics were focused in bioinformatics and data science, and were offered in English by institutions in the developing world.

Massive Open Online Courses and MOOCs-SWAYAM

2018 ◽  
pp. 66-81
Author(s):  
Jyotshna Sahoo ◽  
Basudev Mohanty ◽  
Lipsha Ratha ◽  
Anupama Meher ◽  
Jayanta Kumar Sahu
Keyword(s):  
Online Education ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Usage Pattern ◽  
Massive Open Online ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Geographical Regions ◽  
New Models ◽  
Scopus Database ◽  
Short Span

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are relatively new models for imparting high quality online education not only on different platforms but also multi-learners can simultaneously access from different geographical regions. Within a very short span these courses have gain momentum across the globe through prominent academic and research bodies by investing considerable efforts in developing, promoting and in delivering such courses. While MOOC courses are being imparted through popular global platforms like Coursera, Udacity, edx, Future Learn etc. by a number of top ranked Universities, SWAYAM (Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Mind) is an Indian platform launched involving development of MOOCs e-contents. In this paper, attempts have been made to provide a state-of- the art of the growing popularity of MOOCs courses from several dimensions with specific emphasis on SWAYAM and its usage pattern. To carry out the present work requisite data has been collected from various sources like web portals, reports, SCOPUS database and Similar-Web's analytics tools.

scholarly journals THE REASON FOR LOW ACCESS OF HIGH-QUALITY EDUCATION AND MEDICAL SERVICES

2020 ◽  
pp. 295-297
Author(s):  
GIORGI JVARIDZE
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Poor Country ◽  
Quality Education ◽  
Medical Services ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
High Quality Education ◽  
Rich People ◽  
Rich Countries ◽  
Medical Healthcare

In the article - “The reason for low access of high-quality education and medical services” - the reasons for the rise of the education crisis in the world in the 70s, low results in the education system in Georgia, reduction of the number of pupils compared to previous years, etc. are discussed. In 1999-2000, 714 400 pupils were studying in secondary schools of Georgia and in 2017-2018 only 575 100. Education does not have access not only for the Georgian population, but moreover, for the Subsahari, the Asian and Latin American population. There are four classes (and lower ones) educated people there and the share of educated population is very high. The same situation is in healthcare. Inequality in Medical Healthcare has wide scales in poor countries. Children’s and women›s mortality there are higher than in rich countries. Georgia is a poor country and the situation is the same in real, but the statistics office of Georgia does not publish this information in public as regarding the poor and rich people. But the fact that in 2000 the mortality rate for every 1,000 people in Georgia was 9, 8 units in 2000, and in 2017 - 12, 8 units, means that access to quality medical services has not been reduced but increased. The article ends with a summary conclusion in which the author encourages the authorities to take care of the reduction of inequalities in the population.

MOOCs Theories, Trends, Critics, and Life Sciences Applications

2018 ◽  
pp. 240-251
Author(s):  
Athanasios T. Alexiou ◽  
Prerna Sarup ◽  
Ashok Kumar ◽  
Girish Kumar Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Low Income Countries ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Quality Education ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Large Databases ◽  
The World

While humankind has already reached the so-called zettabyte era in the data transactions, scientific knowledge needs to be transferred and distributed globally, without limitations. Mainly for the case of life sciences and medical fields, the treatment of chronic and lethal diseases requires open access to large databases and clinical trials from researchers across the world, but mostly an open and high-quality education for everyone. The solution has already been applied lately, through the establishment of the massive open online courses (MOOCs) that offer a free and unobstructed multilevel education to anyone and anywhere, using emerging IT techniques. Applications are vast and cover all technologies of today. However, is this true? Are MOOCs the solution to a free and open forum for knowledge sharing, giving the opportunity of education to people from low-income countries? In this chapter, MOOCs are discussed and analyzed in depth alongside the advantages and disadvantages of their application in the higher education.

scholarly journals Massive open online courses in health sciences from Latin American institutions: A need for improvement?

F1000Research ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 940 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Culquichicón ◽  
Luis M. Helguero-Santin ◽  
L. Max Labán-Seminario ◽  
Jaime A. Cardona-Ospina ◽  
Omar A. Aboshady ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Health Science ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Massive Open Online ◽  
University Ranking ◽  
H Index ◽  
High Quality Education ◽  
The Past

Background: Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have undergone exponential growth over the past few years, offering free and worldwide access to high-quality education. We identified the characteristics of MOOCs in the health sciences offered by Latin American institutions (LAIs). Methods: We screened the eight leading MOOCs platforms to gather their list of offerings. The MOOCs were classified by region and subject. Then, we obtained the following information: Scopus H-index for each institution and course instructor, QS World University Ranking® 2015/16 of LAI, and official language of the course. Results: Our search identified 4170 MOOCs worldwide. From them, 205 MOOCs were offered by LAIs, and six MOOCs were health sciences related. Most of these courses (n = 115) were offered through Coursera. One health science MOOC was taught by three instructors, of which only one was registered in Scopus (H-index = 0). The remaining five health science MOOCs had solely one instructor (H-index = 4 [0–17]). The Latin American country with the highest participation was Brazil (n = 11). Conclusion: The contribution of LAI to MOOCs in the health sciences is low.

Education and the Relation to the Outside: A Little Real Reality

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Savat ◽  
Greg Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Online Courses ◽  
Massive Open Online Courses ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Massive Open Online ◽  
Transformative Teaching ◽  
Control Society ◽  
Brave New World ◽  
Radical Transformation

One of the more dominant themes around the use of Deleuze and Guattari's work, including in this special issue, is a focus on the radical transformation that educational institutions are undergoing, and which applies to administrator, student and educator alike. This is a transformation that finds its expression through teaching analytics, transformative teaching, massive open online courses (MOOCs) and updateable performance metrics alike. These techniques and practices, as an expression of control society, constitute the new sorts of machines that frame and inhabit our educational institutions. As Deleuze and Guattari's work posits, on some level these are precisely the machines that many people in their day-to-day work as educators, students and administrators assemble and maintain, that is, desire. The meta-model of schizoanalysis is ideally placed to analyse this profound shift that is occurring in society, felt closely in the so-called knowledge sector where a brave new world of continuous education and motivation is instituting itself.

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