Emergence of Online Course

cMOOCs and xMOOCs

cMOOCs are based on principles from connectivist pedagogy indicating that material should be aggregated (rather than pre-selected), remixable, re-purposable, and feeding forward (i.e. evolving materials should be targeted at future learning). cMOOC instructional design approaches attempt to connect learners to each other to answer questions and/or collaborate on joint projects. This may include emphasizing collaborative development of the MOOC. Andrew Ravenscroft of the London Metropolitan University claimed that connectivist MOOCs better support collaborative dialogue and knowledge building.As MOOCs have evolved, there appear to be two distinct types: those that emphasize the connectivist philosophy, and those that resemble more traditional courses. To distinguish the two, Stephen Downes proposed the terms "cMOOC" and "xMOOC".

xMOOCs have a much more traditional course structure typically with a clearly specified syllabus of recorded lectures and self-test problems. They employ elements of the original MOOC, but are, in effect, branded IT platforms that offer content distribution partnerships to institutions. The instructor is the expert provider of knowledge, and student interactions are usually limited to asking for assistance and advising each other on difficult points.

According to The New York Times, 2012 became "the year of the MOOC" as several well-financed providers, associated with top universities, emerged, including Coursera, Udacity, and edX.

Many universities scrambled to join in the "next big thing", as did more established online education service providers such as Blackboard Inc, in what has been called a "stampede." Dozens of universities in Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia have announced partnerships with the large American MOOC providers. By early 2013, questions emerged about whether academia was "MOOC'd out." This trend was later confirmed in continuing analysis.During a presentation at SXSWedu in early 2013, Instructure CEO Josh Coates suggested that MOOCs are in the midst of a hype cycle, with expectations undergoing wild swings. Dennis Yang, President of MOOC provider Udemy, later made the point in an article for the Huffington Post.

The industry has an unusual structure, consisting of linked groups including MOOC providers, the larger non-profit sector, universities, related companies and venture capitalists. The Chronicle of Higher Education lists the major providers as the non-profits Khan Academy and edX, and the for-profits Udacity and Coursera.

The larger non-profit organizations include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the American Council on Education. University pioneers include Stanford, Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Caltech, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of California at Berkeley, and San Jose State University. Related companies investing in MOOCs include Google and educational publisher Pearson PLC. Venture capitalists include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates and Andreessen Horowitz.

In the fall of 2011 Stanford University launched three courses. The first of those courses was Introduction Into AI, launched by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. Enrollment quickly reached 160,000 students. The announcement was followed within weeks by the launch of two more MOOCs, by Andrew Ng and Jennifer Widom. Following the publicity and high enrollment numbers of these courses, Thrun started a company he named Udacity and Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng launched Coursera. Coursera subsequently announced university partnerships with University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Stanford University and The University of Michigan.

In January 2013, Udacity launched its first MOOCs-for-credit, in collaboration with San Jose State University. In May 2013 the company announced the first entirely MOOC-based master's degree, a collaboration between Udacity, AT&T and the Georgia Institute of Technology, costing $7,000, a fraction of its normal tuition.

Concerned about the commercialization of online education, in 2012 MIT created the not-for-profit MITx. The inaugural course, 6.002x, launched in March 2012. Harvard joined the group, renamed edX, that spring, and University of California, Berkeley joined in the summer. The initiative then added the University of Texas System, Wellesley College and Georgetown University.

In September 2013, edX announced a partnership with Google to develop MOOC.org, a site for non-xConsortium groups to build and host courses. Google will work on the core platform development with edX partners. In addition, Google and edX will collaborate on research into how students learn and how technology can transform learning and teaching. MOOC.org will adopt Google's infrastructure. The Chinese Tsinghua University MOOC platform XuetangX.com (launched Oct. 2013) uses the Open edX platform.

Before 2013 each MOOC tended to develop its own delivery platform. EdX in April 2013 joined with Stanford University, which previously had its own platform called Class2Go, to work on XBlock SDK, a joint open-source platform. It is available to the public under the Affero GPL open source license, which requires that all improvements to the platform be publicly posted and made available under the same license. Stanford Vice Provost John Mitchell said that the goal was to provide the "Linux of online learning." This is unlike companies such as Coursera that have developed their own platform.

By November 2013, EdX offered 94 courses from 29 institutions around the world. During its first 13 months of operation (ending March 2013), Coursera offered about 325 courses, with 30% in the sciences, 28% in arts and humanities, 23% in information technology, 13% in business and 6% in mathematics. Udacity offered 26 courses. The number of courses offered has since increased dramatically: As of January 2016, Edx offers 820 courses, Coursera offers 1580 courses and Udacity offers more than 120 courses. According to FutureLearn, the British Council's Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests has an enrollment of over 440,000 students.

In France, OpenClassrooms, which had been offering online tutorials in IT and programming languages since 1999, begins producing MOOCs in 2012. It now offers more than 1000 courses, focusing on technology and digital skills, mainly in French, but also in English and Spanish, produced either in house, or in partnership with universities and companies.