Abstract
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have known a rapid development and increased popularity within just a few years, with more and more people using them as means of complementary learning needed for both their personal and their professional development. As such, the current paper presents the status of MOOCs usage among higher education students, as well as their perception about the added value these Massive Open Online Courses bring to their skills and career, as part of the lifelong learning process. The analysis, quantitative research based, takes into consideration the opinion of senior students belonging to the largest Economics higher education institution from Romania - Bucharest University of Economic Studies. It reveals that while MOOCs are acknowledged as means of enhancing the personal development, their use for career change and improvement is less taken into consideration. While, by definition, these open online courses should offer free knowledge and learning materials to all registered users, nowadays, due to their increased popularity, some of the MOOC platforms charge participants' for attending many of their courses. Therefore, our research has measured respondents' declared willingness to pay for attending such courses, despite the fact that these are recognized neither by the national, nor by the international official higher education systems. Also we looked for an association between payment availability and Massive Open Online Courses value perception, the findings of the research linking the absence of transferable credit points - specific to higher education system, to the perceived value of MOOCs, and more exactly, to their willingness to pay. |