An overview of the world of MOOCs

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are one of the most prominent trends in higher education in recent years. The term 'MOOCs' represents open access, global, free, video-based instructional content, videos, problem sets and forums released through an online platform to high volume participants aiming to take a course or to be educated. With time and place flexibility, MOOCs gathers scholars and 'like-minded fellow learners around the globe'. Although it has a great prominence in its implementation, there is a lack of research studies and critical papers examining its current situation around the world. For this aim, beginning with the definition and a brief history of MOOCs, this paper examines it from various dimensions: pedagogical and technological implementations around the world and its research focus. Therefore, a literature review on MOOCs characteristics, timeline of its development and a blend of practical issues with the experiences of well-known MOOCs providers are presented. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.