MOOCs
Innovation Alphabet
MOOCs
In a nutshell
Learning never stops: MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are educational tools accessible to anyone, intended for distance learning for a large number of participants. The materials provided are copyright-free and usually developed by teachers from university consortia. With free courses, access to quality education exponentially expands and learning can continue throughout life.
Application Fields
• Educational scope: MOOCs provide a platform of free and always available educational content to enrich one’s knowledge. They are aimed at everyone: college students, working students, teachers, as well as people outside the school environment who have an interest and curiosity in the topics covered.
• Work environment: Shared teachings are also a valuable tool for workers’ continuing education, enabling them to update skills in their relevant field and acquire new ones in different fields.
| Benefits | Downsides |
|---|---|
| Organise a MOOC in any setting with connectivity | Feeling of chaos |
| Use your own devices | Demand digital literacy |
| Use any relevant online tools | Demand self-directed learning ability |
| Work across time zones and boundaries | Potential steep learning curve |
| Do not need a degree to enter | Require time and effort |
| Connect across disciplines and institutions | Technology can distract from learning purpose and content |
| Improve lifelong learning skills |
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Industries
• MOOCs in the education industry
Coursera is an American e-learning platform founded by computer science professors at Stanford University. It offers university courses in MOOC format: lectures are delivered as videos and made available at any time. In addition, access to teaching materials, tutorials and discussion forums are provided. The teachings are free, and allow for an official certificate of attendance.
• MOOCs in universities
Harvard University has partnered with MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to create the EdX platform: an online education initiative that offers many college-level courses designed and taught by professors from top universities. Participation in optional courses allows students to earn college credit. Courses cover a variety of topics: foreign languages, data science, computer science, business and management, engineering, and many others.
• MOOCs in the working environment
Udemy is a platform that includes free and paid courses aimed at students and adult professionals who want to increase their professional opportunities. It is, likely, the largest marketplace of online courses in the world.
Business functions
• MOOCs in support of IT workers
Simplilearn is an e-learning platform founded in 2010 by Indian entrepreneur Krishna Kumar. Started as a technology blog, it has grown into a training website for topics related to project management. Today it delivers online certificates in cybersecurity, cloud computing, project management, digital marketing, and data science.
• MOOCs in support of tech skills development
Udacity is an educational organization that offers online courses to acquire the necessary technological skills useful to confidently enter today’s digital work environment. The topics offered cover artificial intelligence, machine learning, self-driving cars and robotics, application and website development, digital marketing, and so on.
• MOOCs in support of foreign students and employees
OpenLearning is a hybrid platform, suitable for both university students and corporate employees. The teachings employ a strategy that, like social media, encourages comments and reactions, to foster a community of collaborative learners rather than individuals lost in a sea of information.
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Check out more of the Innovation Alphabet:
Gamification
Gamification
Gamification is actually adding a game-like element to make more fun and engaging something that’s not necessarily a game. It’s all about turning a task that might be boring or difficult into a more enjoyable and motivating activity. You can also earn points, badges, and rewards for completing certain actions or challenges. Are you ready to play?
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Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence
A smart business means efficiency: Business Intelligence represents the ability to collect up-to-date data, present it in easy-to-understand formats, and deliver it in a timely manner to employees. Making data-driven decision-making and management processes leads to competitive advantage, reduces inefficiencies, and improves productivity and service at all levels.
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Artificial Scarcity
Artificial Scarcity
We often tend to desire what we cannot have. Or what we are in danger of losing: Artificial Scarcity is a strategy that flaunts a limited number of items that do not correspond to actual availability. The goal is to stimulate the perception in consumers that the stock of items is about to run out and thus create a need based on the “fear of being cut off” or the intention to buy the item in order to resell it at a higher price.
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Subscription Model
Subscription Model
A subscription model is a business tool that generates revenue by charging customers a fee at regular intervals. The company provides products or services to subscribers on a subscription basis, usually monthly or annually. In this way, loyalty has become more important than acquiring new users.
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Holacracy & Flat Organization
Holacracy & Flat Organization
A “flat organization” breaks down the traditional hierarchy and removes its negative connotation, while “holacracy” is the business tool that facilitates its formation. Flat organizations place more emphasis on communication and collaboration, aspiring to a distributed decision-making process that gives each employee a voice. But this is a model that is difficult to implement.
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Mass Customization
Mass Customization
Mass customization is an initiative adopted by companies to embrace the increasingly diversified needs of customers. By offering customizable products and services, consumers feel engaged and can bring their creativity into play. Brands gain from this a boost in perceived value and the opportunity to fuel a positive word-of-mouth marketing.
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Coopetition
Coopetition
If you can’t beat them, join them. Coopetition is a business strategy that defines cooperative and competitive relationships between competing companies in the same young or high-growth market. The goal is to travel a stretch of road together to lower initial research and development costs. Once the desired results are achieved, the companies will return to being enemies as before.
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MVP
MVP
To the disappointment of all sports fans, this is not an article about Michael Jordan. In the language of business, MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product and indicates the version of a new product that has enough features to attract customers. In this way, a team can gather the most feedback with the least effort, improve the prototype, and validate its sale.
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Agile
Agile
Agile is an approach to software development designed to respond to change. Teams quickly analyze the context in which they operate, identify uncertainties faced, and figure out how to adapt to always move forward. Interaction between individuals comes before processes and tools; collaboration with the customer is more important than negotiating contracts.
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Bounded Rationality
Bounded Rationality
The best solutions always come to mind when it is too late. This is because human beings tend to make decisions on the basis of satisfaction rather than optimization. Bounded Rationality means that we are unable to think clearly and linearly, we proceed by trial and error and forget all the possible variables that affect the process. But we are also flawed.
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