Sentiments and Perspectives of Academics About Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Abstract
Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have made a dramatic entry into higher education. Promising to provide an affordable, if not free, education, MOOCs are celebrated for promoting learning in lieu of the physical classroom. This exploratory study employs content analysis to make visible how MOOCs are viewed by academically oriented observers. Wordle, a meta-data software application, was employed to "mine" comments from five years of MOOC coverage by The Chronicle of Higher Education. Wordle revealed a complex framework of sentiments about MOOCs that advocates and skeptics will find useful for gaining a more nuanced understanding of this ostensibly revolutionary mode of online instruction.
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