Massive Open Online Courses ( MOOCs): Definition & Impact to New Mode of Learning and Society

As the world rotates on its axis, certain changes, consequently, have been made. It can be of any physical features, or the technologies that were once impotent but turned to something much powerful. For such instance, during the 21st Century, the most important invention was digital electronics, which has changed the mode of transmission of information in some sort of ways. This paved the way for the creation of massive open online course (MOOC), which has impact towards education, student's achievement and society in general.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are any courses available online and can be accessed by anyone at any specific time, anywhere. The acronym MOOCs consists of word “massive” which is exemplified as te enrollment of participants in large numbers, thus principle MOOCs has no finite scalability. The word 'open' is related to 'massive', which particularly means that there are no restrictions in enrollment to a MOOCs, excluding the use of a device such as mobile / computer and the Internet. 'Online' in MOOCs, is online availability, and most of the courses are freely available. And, being organized into a whole course refers to 'courses'. For example, MOOCs, as an online learning environment in which a learner having a computer and internet connection can enroll online any course without any restrictions.

Now, what are the impacts of Massive Open Online Courses to our society?

Firstly, MOOC or massive open online course has created impact in terms of students' education. Education, as one of the crucial rights and property of every human, is a beneficiary of MOOCs, The innovations in technology we have right now, are integrated into the education, which crafts a conductive environment for teaching and learning. This is one of such teaching and learning environment is massive open online courses(MOOCs) which is a new innovation in distance education, and has turned out to be very popular in a short span of time. Especially with the rage of this pandemic we are all experiencing at this point of time, it is a vital and powerful tool to suffice the knowledge of the students.

Secondly, it is considered as an efficient tool for students and their academic achievements. Basing at the feedbacks of most students who used MOOCS, we can therefore say that the students who spend more time and do activities in a MOOCs session were to complete their courses. Furthermore, students’ probabilities of getting achievements in a form certificate courses, are more when the same quantity of activities was completed in lesser sessions. Thus, Mohamed, 2015, suggests that spending more time in activities on MOOCs make learning more effective.

Lastly, to the impact it has on the society in general. MOOCs enables access to quality education to as many as people possible, and to make education possible to various social groups. It can also be addressed to the jobless, by which it can make them develop certain skills needed in order to be employed. Further, as the world is getting more modernized, MOOCs has the ability to be bridge the gap between advanced technological tools and high-quality, low-cost education.

And as our planet will systematically achieve its complete revolution, certain struggles will interfere inevitably. But, the advent of technologies will be one of our greatest assets to combat these. Massive open online course, driven by the effects of these technologies, is one of these. Overall, it is an efficient way of learning amidst the pandemic. This will not only suffice the minds of the students, but will also be one of our greatest weapon of achieving success in the near future.