Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are offered for little or no cost through entities such as

Coursera, EDX, UDACITY etc. Many top universities world over have collaborated with MOOCs to
provide an education to their masses regardless of their physical location. Traditionally, university
education was for the age group between 18 and 24. The MOOCs and 100% online programs
have influenced adult education by exerting significant their learning hence, resulting in the
majority of students enrolled in these programs being returning students seeking an education or
adult professionals. The real power of these MOOCs is that people who can have access to these
courses can transform their everyday lives. They can use their minds, and learn things, they
would not otherwise have. A lot of rich material can be accessed to supplement whatever
learning situation one is in.
There is a distinction between 100% online programs and MOOCs. The similarity is that they are
both courses and they are both offered online. The 100% online programs mean that there is
lecturer engagement, feedback is provided, assessments and qualifications are available hence,
fees are attached to cater the cost of the extra services 100% programs offer.
Online courses usually have a limited number of students that can enroll but MOOCs usually have
no limits and the number of participants can range from hundreds to thousands.
MOOCs are more centered on context, while online courses are centred on content. One of the
conditions to creating a MOOC is good content, but what sustains in the dynamic nature of
building context around the content.
Online courses are characterized by static-content which is close-ended whereas in the MOOCs
the content is not static. The creation of user-generated content, collaboration, and learner
participation is what MOOC is evolved around dynamically.
In a 100% online program, participants are only consumers but in an MOOC the participants can
be both, as creators and consumers.