(Written by Conrad Ko, Edited by Magaret Jarvis)
What is MOOC?
A massive open online course (MOOC; /muːk/) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive user forums to support community interactions between students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs). MOOCs are a recent development in distance education which was first introduced in 2008 and emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012.
What are the most famous MOOC?
Education is a big industry, how does MOOC make money if their courses are free?
Since most of their courses are free, they make money by selling verified certificates at $50 USD per piece. As a demo, I have enrolled in one of its courses.
Recently, I am trying to learn something about programming and basic computing designs. So I decide to enroll a course on EDX called 6.00.1x at https://www.edx.org/course/introduction-computer-science-mitx-6-00-1x-0#.VLdGfzGUd8E. I have enrolled a few MOOC courses on www.coursera.com and www.udacity.com but I never have the determination to finish any.
As the screen shot suggest, to make a verifiable certificate, you have to submit your Photo ID and a Web Cam Image. This is to prevent someone else taking the whole course for you, MOOCs barred hired hands.
After you are enrolled, they will try to grade you through quizzes. If you pass they will handover a certificate. Since edX was runned by Havard and Standford, it makes a lot of sense for glory hunters like me to go the extra mile in buying the certification. (Well its targeted at Chinese in general).