MOOC- A big social market:

MOOC is the next big thing

I am a big fan of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) presented on the web. Edx, Coursera, Udemy being the biggest player of this market and have the widest range of courses too. It looks like they have a team which more technologically advanced, business oriented and incredibly linked at right places.

I am currently pursuing 2 courses from Edx, on people management and basics of marketing and i am spell bound the way teachers go out of the way to create such content, which we can enjoy at our home munching chips and sitting comfortably on our bean bags.

In India, the concept of MOOC is comparatively new and unchartered by students. The reason might be the authenticity of the course, the time investment and most importantly the money investment (this might be the biggest reason). You have to shell around $30-$120 for some courses, which translates to Rs.2000 to Rs.8000. Though the amount is not huge, but psychologically spending closed to Rs.10,000 is not Indian thing-“We want the feel and then will shell something”, that’s what we think and I don’t think it’s wrong as every shining stuff is not gold.

Certificate validation is yet another point, maybe outside India these courses have some validity, but in India it’s your academic scores which take the front seat, not these courses which are taught online by some of the finest faculty around the globe, and not by some of the best money backed institutions of India.

Indian youth has to let go inhibition about these courses, if they really want to know the world and the knowledge it stores for us and the Indian education system, corporate and bureaucracy ought to give some validation to these courses so that we can freely learn things without thinking whether there is some future scope or not, or whether it has a better ROI or not.

There are two biggest advantages of getting “MOOCED” (if I were to create a word!):

1. Career growth: There are tangible and intangible benefits of MOOC in career growth and mapping. Tangible can be finding new jobs, starting your own business, salary hike or promotion, whereas; intangible can be skill enhancement which has happened after the course, candidacy improvement for a job or shift to new career.

In country like India, there is a high chance a person working at lower level getting better benefits from MOOC course as compared to person working on higher level due to degree oriented career market.

2. Education/studies: It is the biggest market which can be tapped by these MOOC websites as student are really hungry to add few certificates under their name to cover up messed up extra-curricular activities and grades at high school or universities. Also, they can complete the prerequisites for academic program, for example, I am learning marketing and people management as I see my career moving towards sales and marketing in future. They give you plethora of options to chose from and then one can decide in which direction one has to move.

It is an effective way to study provided you have stable internet connection, willingness to learn and appetite to take risk and invest money in something which will take some time to take shape, especially in developing countries.

I will definitely advise you to explore such courses and websites and #DiscoverNewInYou and #LearnToday...