When Will College Truly Leave the Building: If MOOCs are the Answer,What is the Question?

Abstract

The Internet has disrupted or threatened to disrupt the traditional business models in many different areas, including publishing, record companies, retail sales, motion pictures, and advertising. One potential source of disruption for higher education is online learning, especially the recent focus on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Can MOOCs provide a less expensive substitute for face-to-face instruction, and will MOOCs represent such a major change in the learning process that they will be disruptive, eventually replacing traditional education methods? How should colleges and universities respond to online learning in general and MOOCs in particular?