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It is time to MOOC and SPOC in the Gulf Region

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Abstract

In this paper we will explain massive open online courses (MOOCs)-how they started, their targeted audience, and what services they provide- and demonstrate selected MOOC service providers that best suit the Arabian Gulf region. The record annual growth for MOOCs has made many respected institutions reconsider their educational strategies. Many elite universities have started to join the stream; others are expected to join very soon. In this paper we will focus on select MOOC providers that will help institutions or individual instructors ride the stream before it is too late. All MOOC providers have been carefully selected to meet the author’s criteria of either having crossed a capacity range limit or being tailored to meet the Arabian Gulf region needs. Finally, the paper summarizes the best practices and gives recommendations for any Gulf region institution or individual for better implementation of MOOCs into their learning system.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Engineering Department, Kuwait University, Kuwait, Kuwait

    A. M. Mutawa

Authors
  1. A. M. Mutawa
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. M. Mutawa.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by the authors.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Glossary of terms

AI:

Artificial Intelligence

FTF:

Face-to-face

IT:

Information Technology

LMS:

Learning Management System

MIT:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

MOOC:

Massive Open Online Course

MPOC:

Massive Private Online Course

SPOC:

Small Private Online Course

UAE:

United Arab Emirates

VLE:

Virtual Learning Environment

Appendix 2: Tables

Table 1 Top 16 countries from which visitors to Corsera.org are originated based on Alexa listing
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Table 2 Top 10 countries from which visitors to edx.org are originated based on Alexa listing
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Table 3 Top 10 countries from which visitors to udacity.com are originated based on Alexa listing
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Table 4 Top 10 countries from which visitors to udemy.com are originated based on Alexa listing
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Table 5 Top 5 countries from which visitors to Eddrak.org are originated based on Alexa listing
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Table 6 Top 5 countries from which visitors to nadrus.com are originated based on Alexa listing
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Table 7 Top 5 countries from which visitors to rwaq.org are originated based on Alexa listing
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Table 8 Comparison table for all MOOC providers discussed in this paper
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Appendix 3: Figures

Fig. 1
figure 1

The Growth of MOOCs in terms of number of started courses (Shah 2015)

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Fig. 2
figure 2

Rice University specialized track on fundamentals of computing via Coursera

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Fig. 3
figure 3

instructor interface at Udemy.com to add a new recourse to a lecture

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Fig. 4
figure 4

Sample feedback given by Udemy.com staff members on a course I’ve created. Feedback is categorized based on the response and problem status

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Fig. 5
figure 5

Nadrus.com instructor interface for adding a new resource for a lecture

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Fig. 6
figure 6

Alexa ranking of coursera.org, edX.org, udacity.com and udemy.com for the past 2 years

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Fig. 7
figure 7

Rank comparison over time for the past 2 years between edraak.org, menaversity.com, nadrus.com and rwaq.org

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Fig. 8
figure 8

Audience demography of edraak.org

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Fig. 9
figure 9

Audience demography of rwaq.org

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Mutawa, A.M. It is time to MOOC and SPOC in the Gulf Region. Educ Inf Technol 22, 1651–1671 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-016-9502-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-016-9502-0

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