Wherefore Art Thou MOOC: Defining Massive Open Online Courses

Abstract

Although MOOCs are a much-discussed topic in higher education, these conversations do not often include details regarding the nuanced nature of these courses. What do we mean when we refer to MOOCs? In the current work, we not only delve into the variations of MOOCs, but more specifically, we put a typology we previously created into practice. Our goal with this work is not only to provide an extended categorization for MOOCs, but also to apply those categories to MOOCs that are currently advertised or already available.