Review of ‘Towards a European Perspective on Massive Open Online Courses’ By Jim Shimabukuro Editor I was drawn to some of the articles in this special issue1 and found insights that I feel are worth mentioning. One that stands out is in Schuwer et al.’s article,2 in a summary attributed to Fairclough3: “MOOCs are perhaps best understood as ‘imaginary’… a prefiguring of possible and desired realities rather than a unified and coherent domain around which clear boundaries exist.”
Fairclough’s observation takes us a step closer to unravelling the MOOC conundrum. The expanding list of acronyms for different MOOC constructs should tip us to the fact that MOOCs are reifications, figments of our imagination or, more accurately, a specific set of ideas bundled in different ways. In short, MOOCs don’t exist. By “don’t exist,” I mean they’re not a separate or unique specie. In other words, MOOCs are projected variations of standard online courses. I was also drawn to Dalsgaard and Thestrup’s article,4 especially their idea of “transparency.” 6 Marta R. Like this: