Attitude Towards the Deployment of Information Technology Programs in the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Environment

Abstract

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are open enrolment, free online courses, which offer a flexible and economical approach to career enhancement, learning of new skills, and delivery of high-quality educational experiences at scale. MOOC environment consists of deployment of learning platform such as a learning management system (LMS), learning materials that are pre-made and interactive for asynchronous learning, which would require a number of expertise from different departments. In addition, an IT program might have other extensive requirements such as a virtual lab to make learning more effective as IT programs require technical approaches to learning methods rather than theoretical approaches. Delivery of affordable and free courses to the general public entails significant capital expenditures on equipment and software. As a result, some institutions may suffer a financial loss due to an increase in expenses. This paper evaluates the respondents’ perspectives of on the preparation of the MOOC courses specifically, the technical IT subjects. This paper also analyses the performance and effectiveness of the delivery of such technical IT subjects in an asynchronous delivery mode. The data is collected using randomly distributed questionnaires from various universities and colleges in Malaysia. The results from this study would provide an insight into the proper approaches and solutions to the implementation and deployment of MOOC environment especially in private colleges or universities that offer IT or technical programs.