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MOOCs can provide better access to students who might be shut out of courses that fill up, or to students at remote campuses which don’t offer the full panel of courses that the flagship university campus does. In this case, MOOCs could allow more students to finish their degree in four years or less.
Also, ideological benefit: if a university’s mission is to extend education (especially in their special niche) to the world, MOOCs align with this mission .
Branding, marketing.
On campus students benefit from access to online materials; distant campuses get access to information, materials that they may not otherwise get.
On campus face2face students can be emboldened by seeing remote students ask questions and get them answered; can increase class participation of on campus students, enrich the classes.
Regarding, how to assess the quality of a MOOC: may place more burden for determining what was learned on the employer, and their ability to test candidates for desired competency.
one example of best practice: When a course is developed, create a list of objectives for what you wish the students to be able to do when they complete the course.
MOOCs can meet an identified skill gap or competency gap in industry employees.
The low/no cost could be very advantageous to employers, since they often pay the cost of continuing education of their employees.
Employers need to know that a course/program teaches their employees what the employer needs to know.
MOOC format facilitates reaching the global workforce, global supply chain of an employer.
A company is often more interested in their employees acquiring needed information/competency rather than getting a degree. A MOOC could meet their needs even better, because employees beefing up their resume with an additional resume might actually make them more likely or able to move to another job.
MOOCs can address education needs in areas that are rapidly changing. Could meet this need even better if courses were “on demand”.
An employer might want specific individuals to have competency in one area, and other individuals to have competency in another. So they might take different courses, easily done with MOOC.