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Talk about giving the people what they want. It’s been compared to the introduction of self-serve in grocery stores in the 70’s and 80’s whereby a digitally-accessible education sees people picking and choosing their own learning rather than waiting for a ‘grocer’ to assemble it for them.

developing countries where university-level education is not universally accessible, it means something even more – being able to study at all, and world-class courses at that. AfterSchoolAfrica.com has a good summary here if you need a quick overview of the history of MOOCs so far by the way.

Once flexible and even user-generated learning content embedded in MOOC’s

Cathy N. Davidson argued exactly this at her presentation, “Access Demands a Paradigm Shift,” at the 2013 Modern Language Association conference

The discussion forum, currently the holy grail of "engagement" inside most online courses, is particularly problematic. Exchanges within forums are usually too strictly controlled and reduce honest interaction to busy-work scored by a rubric. These interactions rarely resemble the many and varied kinds of discussions possible in a classroom. And many teachers require things of online discussions that they would never demand in an on-ground classroom: one post of at least 250 words, properly cited, and exactly 2 responses to fellow students. Imagine trying to create a lively classroom discussion with these kinds of constraints.

hierarchical discussion forum tools

Online higher education is increasingly hailed as a chance for educators in the developed world to expand access and quality across the globe

enroll in online courses. The African Virtual University was created based on work the World Bank began in 1995 to provide education in sub-Saharan African. It now supplies coursework