MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course, and if you search the web for how a MOOC should be designed and what can be considered a MOOC you get many different opinions and definitions. Apparently, it is easy to confuse and consider many forms of online teaching with the concept of MOOC (e..g, to sound cool or jump on the hype train), but according to some it boils down to one’s mindset towards education and how a course is planned and designed from scratch. The following is a definition of a MOOC that I came across during my research in the course, and I think is very interesting to share. It is from an article titled “Academic libraries in the age of MOOCs” by Kerry Wu [1]:

“A MOOC is not the online version of a face-to-face (F2F) class. It’s not a collection of “recorded classroom lectures” and lecture notes. It is a “born digital” class, even if it’s adapted from an existing F2F class. Video lectures are the core of MOOCs. MOOC providers leverage technologies to create a rich learning environment by incorporating at least one and often most of the following elements: professor speaking directly to the camera while accompanied by PowerPoint slides, notes, or animated illustrations on digital whiteboards; in-video quizzes; additional video clips that are not part of the professor talk; and video interviews of guest speakers”.

[1] Wu, K. (2013), “Academic libraries in the age of MOOCs”, Reference Services Review, Vol. 41 No. 3, pp. 576-587. https://doi.org/10.1108/RSR-03-2013-0015