Digital Pedagogy - A Guide for Librarians, Faculty, and Students

In her article, “Academic Libraries in the Age of MOOCs,” Wu lists the philosophical and practical benefits of MOOCs.

MOOCs can have the benefit of:

• from a philosophical perspective, turning higher education into a public good, by allowing anyone to enroll in the courses.
• MOOCs give an opportunity to connect openly on a global scale, with global learners
• The ability to experiment with pedagogical methods on a vast scale
• MOOCs typically collect data on student behaviour, which can be mined, including data on motivation, online interaction, team collaboration, and learning habits
• Positive disruption at the higher education and high school levels, in terms of pedagogy
• Can aid in the flipped classroom scenario

Challenges of MOOCs

Along with positive features, there are also some concerns around MOOCs. Creed-Dikeogu and Clark state that:

• they are not an educational panacea
• they are not yet evolved enough to provide thorough peer assessment methodology, robust business revenue models, stabilized retention rates, successful pedagogical design, or resolution for cheating and plagiarism.
• There are frequent concerns with the actual platforms on which the MOOCs are delivered on experiencing technical difficulties. 
• Assessment tends to consist of Multiple choice questions
• Those enrolled rarely or never have the opportunity to write a research paper
• It is difficult for participants to build relationship with prof
• It often replicates the sage on the stage scenario as MOOCs often lack effective instructional design
• The authors also emphasize that Instructional design best practices need to be followed.