MOOCs will drive HE innovation across the Asia-Pacific

The transformative impacts of massive open online courses (MOOCs) can be traced back to 2012 when platforms such as Coursera and edX were established in the United States. The trend quickly gained momentum worldwide, spreading throughout Europe and the Asia-Pacific. This movement is democratising access to high-quality learning experiences through technological innovation.

MOOCs represent the seamless integration of content, pedagogy, quality assurance and technology, making educational courses and programmes – traditionally limited to face-to-face, campus-based settings – accessible to a wide audience. This approach opens doors to disadvantaged and remote students and improves access, quality and equity in higher education.

A shared journey

Echoing the growing MOOC movement in the United States and Europe, several national MOOC platforms have been launched in Asia and the Pacific.

In particular, China’s XuetangX and the University of the Philippines Open University’s MOOC initiative emerged in 2013, followed by Japan’s JMOOC in 2014, the Republic of Korea’s K-MOOC in 2015, Thai MOOC in 2016 and the Indonesia Cyber Education Institute in 2021.

In response to this burgeoning trend, UNESCO Bangkok initiated a Regional Expert Meeting on MOOCs for Higher Education in Asia and the Pacific. This pivotal event took place in Chengdu, China, from 31 July to 1 August 2015, marking the commencement of our collective efforts to advance MOOCs in the region.

On 10-11 October 2016, the second UNESCO regional expert meeting was held in Seoul, South Korea. Hosted by the Korean National Institute for Lifelong Learning, the event focused on “MOOCs as a catalyst for enriching teaching and learning in Asia and the Pacific”.

Building on these joint efforts, UNESCO Bangkok joined the Thailand Cyber University, K-MOOC and JMOOC in organising the First Asia-Pacific MOOCs Stakeholders Summit on 2-3 March 2017 in Bangkok, which saw the official launch of the Thai MOOC and the signing of memoranda of understanding between JMOOC, K-MOOC and Thai MOOC.

Through our collaborative endeavours, we successfully organised the Asia-Pacific Regional Seminar on MOOCs for Higher Education: Embracing Digital Opportunities for SDG 4, hosted by the International Centre for Higher Education Innovation under the auspices of UNESCO (UNESCO-ICHEI) in Shenzhen, China, on 11-12 June 2018. The seminar was attended by 117 participants from nearly 30 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Subsequently, UNESCO Bangkok has maintained regular engagement with partners to facilitate international cooperation and mutual exchange of MOOCs between different platforms in the region and beyond.

It is encouraging to see numerous memoranda of understanding agreements signed between different MOOC platforms, including the most recent one between the Thai MOOC and XuetangX, signed in Bangkok in early May 2024.

The multifaceted benefits of MOOCs

The inherent benefits and potential scale of MOOCs can be seen in the very words that make up their acronym.

First, the term ‘massive’ indicates that MOOCs reach a significantly larger number of learners than traditional on-campus, classroom-based education. Indeed, in many countries actively working to improve their gross enrolment ratios (GERs) for higher education – such as Indonesia – promoting MOOCs is considered a cost-effective solution for increasing access to higher education.

Secondly, the attribute of being ‘open’ implies that MOOCs should be publicly available to all motivated learners who can benefit from them at an affordable or zero cost.

While different MOOCs may serve different purposes, target specific audiences and have different entry requirements, certification processes and fee structures, their audiences should extend beyond traditional student cohorts to include adult and lifelong learners, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

In the Republic of Korea, starting in 2018, the primary focus of K-MOOC has transitioned towards fostering lifelong learning. In other words, the policy priority of K-MOOC is to provide educational opportunities for individual growth through lifelong learning to all citizens.

Thirdly, the term ‘online’ refers to integrating digital technology in developing and delivering learning programmes. This development is inevitable, given technology’s pervasive influence on all aspects of teaching and learning.

However, it goes beyond mere technological implementation to include the prospects for collaboration between technology specialists, content developers, quality assurance practitioners and pedagogical experts.

Finally, the term ‘course’ means that MOOCs operate at the level of individual courses, which can be unbundled into smaller learning units or bundled into larger learning programmes.

This demonstrates the alignment between MOOCs and micro-credential programmes, which can significantly enhance the flexibility, relevance and quality of learning programmes.

Investing in infrastructure for MOOCs

Typically, a course consists of learning objectives or outcomes, learning modules, teaching and learning supporting materials, pedagogical considerations, delivery methods, assessment of learning outcomes and the like. MOOCs are no exception to this pattern. However, developing and delivering MOOCs often requires a more substantial initial investment in infrastructure than traditional courses.

First, it is crucial to prioritise improving internet transmission speeds through the widespread deployment of 5G technology. Inadequate internet service provision can significantly reduce the quality of students’ learning experiences and may hinder the effective use of MOOCs. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable learners were left offline.

Secondly, creating MOOC portals integrated with online learning management systems at both national and institutional levels requires a consistent allocation of financial and human resources from the government or alternative support channels.

It’s gratifying to see the proliferation of operational and thriving national and institutional MOOC platforms supported by diverse funding streams, including government allocations, university contributions and private sector investment.

The Thai MOOC platform, for example, is government funded and provides a learning ecosystem to support learners, academic institutions and public and private organisations in Thailand.

It has five functions, including a registration process to verify and validate providers, a MOOC course directory, a learning management system, e-testing to measure the learning outcomes of online learners and a credit bank system.

Thirdly, it is imperative to establish a comprehensive teaching and learning support centre at the institutional level. This centre should serve as a hub of technological expertise, quality assurance and pedagogical guidance to support faculty members in enhancing their capacity to develop and implement MOOCs within their teaching responsibilities.

Finally, budgets need to be allocated for the procurement of relevant applications and services within institutions. These allocations should cover the maintenance and upgrading of shared institutional infrastructure and the empowerment of individual faculty members to ensure access to the latest technologies and support.

Incentivising and empowering faculty members

At the system level, governments can launch national MOOC initiatives with financial incentives to support relevant and innovative MOOC proposals submitted by higher education institutions and faculty members.

Efforts should also be made to remove barriers to the mainstreaming of MOOCs in the development and delivery of higher education programmes.

This includes the recognition of MOOC-based online and blended learning within the national qualifications frameworks alongside subject-specific, professional and occupational quality standards. Such recognition should also extend to the operational frameworks at both the institutional and faculty levels.

There are many training resources and opportunities for faculty members to improve their capacity to develop and deliver MOOCs. Interestingly, a significant proportion of these resources are in the form of MOOCs.

However, these MOOC-based resources are often underutilised by their intended recipients due to the lack of appropriate incentives and mechanisms to encourage their engagement.

In addition to improving the relevance, user-friendliness and appeal of MOOC-based training resources designed for faculty members, a practical strategy is to integrate them with micro-credential programmes offering continuing professional development (CPD) credits. This alignment can be smoothly incorporated into larger CPD initiatives for faculty members.

An alternative strategy could be to link MOOC-based micro-credential CPD programmes with the human resource management systems of higher education institutions to improve the ICT skills of faculty members. This integration could include career advancement, academic promotion and annual performance reviews for faculty members.

In Malaysia, institutions such as Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia extend financial incentives to MOOC developers. At the same time, other public universities have revamped their performance evaluation processes to include MOOC development as a key component.

In particular, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia offers bonus points to staff involved in MOOC development. Another strategy is to include MOOC development as a requirement for career advancement, as demonstrated by Universiti Sains Malaysia’s implementation in 2022.

Linking MOOCs with open educational resources

While the MOOC concept seems to have a broader scope than that of open educational resources (OERs), there is undeniably an overlapping segment that embodies the same ‘open’ ethos and principles.

However, the meaning of openness may differ between MOOCs and OERs. MOOCs often emphasise affordability or free access for learners, while OERs focus more on the specific utilisation of learning resources within the boundaries of different domains governed by intellectual property rights.

In fact, these two concepts can be synergistic, as MOOCs can adopt the format of OERs and vice versa. However, it’s important to avoid over-commercialised MOOCs, especially those with high fees. The aim is to remove cost barriers for MOOCs that are in line with the OER classification, thus ensuring equitable access to high-quality learning programmes for all.

The 2017 Ljubljana OER Action Plan suggests that governments consider enforcing mandatory OER commitments for educational content providers and higher education institutions. This could be done by earmarking public funding and incorporating these commitments into institutional procurement procedures.

Higher education institutions should include institutional OER objectives in their corporate social responsibility initiatives. This includes making their high-quality MOOC-based learning programmes available to a wider audience, both nationally and internationally. In addition, faculty members should be encouraged to create OER-based MOOCs as an integral part of their routine teaching activities.

Supportive credit bank systems

Positioned as a critical component within the learning management system (LMS), credit bank systems serve multiple functions. They facilitate the recognition, transferability and accumulation of MOOC-based learning experiences through a unified credit framework. This enables learners to accrue credits necessary for micro-credentials and full qualifications, thus establishing the fundamental infrastructure for lifelong learning.

A key challenge is to develop credit transfer systems for nationwide MOOC-based learning experiences. This involves aligning learning hours or workloads and learning outcomes with national qualifications frameworks and other national quality standards to enhance consistency and coherence.

Often, credits earned on one MOOC platform are not recognised by others. It is imperative to create a comprehensive national credit calculation system that covers all learning providers, including MOOC platforms. This initiative can provide learners with credits similar to a universally accepted national currency, ensuring widespread recognition across the country.

In the Republic of Korea, 41 universities participated in the K-MOOC Academic Credit Recognition System in 2021, and 413 MOOCs were accepted as regular credit courses at other universities, regardless of whether they were K-MOOC content providers. The number of MOOCs recognised as credit courses in the academic credit bank system increased from 27 in 2020 to 32 in 2021.

Credit bank systems should be developed with multiple access points and data upload facilities for accredited learning providers. They should also have collaborative validation mechanisms and a shared database underpinned by robust algorithms. This infrastructure can facilitate the e-credentialing of a wide range of learning activities, including those based on MOOCs.

Blockchain technology holds great promise for achieving this goal. It’s encouraging to see progress in Indonesia, where efforts are underway to integrate blockchain technology into the learning management system. UNESCO’s collection of additional use cases from different countries will further expand the pool of experience, allowing for broader consolidation and sharing across the region.

Partnerships for progress

The importance of MOOCs in improving access, quality and equity in higher education is increasingly recognised by countries across the region. Moreover, the momentum around MOOCs has been reignited as countries align themselves with the drive for digital transformation to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, a focus highlighted at the 2022 Transforming Education Summit at the UN Headquarters in New York.

Enabling ecosystems are essential to bridge gaps in awareness, infrastructure, financial support, capacity building, incentives and more to facilitate the growth and flourishing of MOOCs. Conducting a national health check of the MOOC ecosystem is beneficial as it can help identify bottlenecks and key barriers, leading to the formulation of prioritised action plans accordingly.

Member states need to develop national frameworks for MOOCs supported by micro-credentials and OERs. UNESCO stands ready to assist in further facilitating the regional networks and promoting collaborative synergies among MOOC platforms, practitioners and stakeholders. These efforts will advance the development of an Asia-Pacific framework that promotes regional harmonisation and global impact.

Dr Libing Wang is chief of section for education at the UNESCO Regional Office in Bangkok, Thailand.