MOOC, COOC and SPOC - Different online courses, different needs

MOOC, COOC and SPOC - Different online courses, different needs
By Euronews
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This week on UTalk fields a question from Olivia in Brussels who asks: “What is the difference between a MOOC, a COOC and a SPOC? And who are those

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This week on UTalk fields a question from Olivia in Brussels who asks: “What is the difference between a MOOC, a COOC and a SPOC? And who are those online courses meant for?”

The answer comes from Remi Bachelet Senior lecturer and researcher at the Ecole Centrale of Lille and the creator of France’s first certifying MOOC called Project Management.

“MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. The importance of this course is that it is open to a lot of people at the same time.

COOC stands for Corporate Open Online Course and is designed for companies.

And SPOC stands for Small Private Open Course. Contrary to MOOC and COOC, the aim of a SPOC is to address a small group of people and offer them a tailor made course.

The target public for these three online courses is very broad:

There are individuals, like you and me, students enrolled by their professors at university and workers enrolled by their companies.

So, the advantage for people looking for a training session is that they can register just by clicking online. They can train, whenever they want to from home, and they no longer have to go out. A lot of people who are at work all day are now able to train this way in the evenings.

Basically, the aim is to offer free training. When you produce a video for an online course, there is no difference in the cost whether it is watched by one person or thousands.

However, we do need a business model.

With MOOCS, for example, if you want to sit for an exam to obtain a qualification or be granted university credits, at the end of the session, then you must pay for that service. (However, if you just want to follow the course without validation then it is free). That is how the business model works.”

If you want to ask a question, go to the euronews website or on our social media pages.

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