Examining the Views of Engineering Students about Massive Open Online Courses

Abstract

Today, one of the most important tools of open and distance learning, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) has emerged as a continuation of the Open Educational Resources approach. The Open Education Resources (OER) approach was first introduced in 1999, and gained a great momentum in 2002 with the help of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MOOCs are defined as a scalable, free online course with open access that supports learning in different fields. Thanks to these platforms, an interaction between learner-learner and learner-intructor is established and a flexible learning environment is provided. MOOCs, which first appeared in 2008, have increased their popularity with MOOC platforms that include hundreds of courses such as edX, Coursera, Udemy and Udacity with the support of many important universities in the world such as MIT and Harvard. In this study, the thoughts of engineering students about MOOCs were asked with a questionnaire which was used as a data collection tool developed by the researchers. The study was attended by 307 students studying Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Food Engineering