Increasing Educational Value: The Transformation of MOOCs into Open Educational Resources

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) have developed into one of the most prominent instruments of technology-enhanced learning, and their much-praised potential has often been connected to one of their core components: openness. In theory, this feature not only ensures free access to content, but also affects other aspects that enable participants to make the most of their learning experience, like re-using and copying materials or even creating derivative works. In practice, however, most MOOCs do not subscribe to these more advanced principles of openness, especially those provided by for-profit platforms. In this paper, we would like to discuss one particular strategy to improve the current situation. OER (Open Educational Resources) generally adhere to higher standards regarding the meaning of openness, and we argue that this strong focus on the reusability of learning materials would present a tremendous improvement to the educational value of MOOCs. We conclude that the transformation of MOOCs into OER shows promising potential in the areas of financing, collaboration and usability, with a particular focus on benefits from the students' perspective.