Evaluating Financial Markets MOOC on Coursera: Objectives & Pedagogy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), focusing on Coursera's Financial Markets course offered by Yale University. It explores the evolution of MOOCs, the needs they address for learners, and a critical evaluation of the chosen course based on objectives, entry criteria, registration, learning processes, teaching strategies, assessment methodology, and progression opportunities. The report also discusses the future perspective of MOOCs, including their potential to enhance education through blended learning and their role in achieving sustainable development goals. Furthermore, it identifies consequences of factors affecting MOOCs, such as accessibility to technology and the demand for international networking, ultimately concluding that MOOCs provide valuable learning opportunities globally and contribute to inclusive education.

INNOVATION &
TECHNOLOGY
Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

TABLE OF CONTENT

INTRODUCTION
◦ MOOC refers to the free courses available online for everyone to enroll. There are
several MOOC platforms through which free courses can be accessed by leaners to
enhance their skills and knowledge. Examples of such platforms are Coursera,
Canvas Network, edX, Udemy, etc.
◦ This chosen MOOC platform for this presentation is courser which was founded in
2012 by professors in Stanford and has become one of the largest massive open
access course provider across the globe.
◦ In this presentation, the discussion would be done pertaining to what actually MOOC
is, how it has evolved and what needs does this platform satisfy for the learners.
◦ Further, after choosing one of the free courses available over courser, critical
evaluation will be done based on 6 elements which involves objectives and rationale
of the course, criteria for entry, registration, enrolment & learning processes in place
which includes user experience, the strategies employed for teaching & learning
along with its pedagogy, methodology for assessment attached to the course and the
last one is the clarity of any progression opportunities.
◦ The chosen course available for free over Coursera is “Financial Markets” offered by
Yale University. This course is meant for building financially savvy leadership skills.

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
◦ MOOC or Massive Open Online course refers to the online courses available in the form of video or
where the learning content is in the form of video. These platforms provides opportunity to a large
number of learners across the globe to learn from universities on the top position in the world.
◦ These platforms provide for courses which can be easily accessible by learners without any restrictions
where the course content includes integrated tests & video lectures.
◦ Coursera is one of the MOOC who have partnered with many universities & companies for providing
self-paced & fully remote learnings opportunities which facilitates acquisition of digital certificates at
undergraduate, graduate as well as post graduate levels. In its catalogue, one can find 3900 courses
associated with different specializations at an affordable rates and even for free.

MOOC Evolution
◦ The term MOOC was coined originally by Dave Cormier in 2008 for referring a large online class that
George Seimens of Athabasca University taught as well as Stephen Downes of Canada.
◦ They intend to exploit the chances for interaction through online tools among wide variety of
participants so as to facilitate a richer learning environment as compared to what traditional tools are
allowing. At first hand, 25 students of the University of Manitoba has attended the course on the campus
followed by 2300 participants around the world participated online.
◦ In 2011, three online courses are offered by Stanford for free resulted in 160000 enrollments across the
globe and more than 20000 have completed the course.
◦ Then in the single year 2012, Coursera & Udacity are founded for offering MOOC. Since 2007 when the
first MOOC was introduced by Yale, there seems a continuous increase in the number of platforms where
highly diversified courses offered in unique teaching style can be seen.

Needs Solved For Learners By MOOC
There are number of needs that MOOC solved for the learners across the globe, which includes the
following:
◦ It cater to the needs of those learners who face difficulty in paying high costs for availing additional
skills & knowledge by offering courses for free.
◦ It solve the problem of distance between the university and learners as the courses are easily accessible
for availing expertise & education.
◦ It provides learners with the opportunity to learn, connect & collaborate with colleagues & peers
internationally, thus solving their needs for dynamism.
◦ It also creates long lasting networks & connections that could be maintained even when the course ends
and thus, satisfies the social needs of the learners.

Critical Evaluation
◦ The chosen free online course available over Coursera is “Financial Markets”.
Objectives and Rationale of the course: This course is meant for developing the learner’s understanding of
managing financial risk, building financially savvy leadership skills and the methods or techniques through
which current practices can be evaluated to ensure better future prospects. The ultimate goals behind offering
this course is to make use of financial markets effectively towards building better society.
Entry criteria: The participants entering into this course must be possessing undergraduate course in finance
background. This undergraduate course must be completed with minimum of 50% marks.
Registration, enrollment & learning process: For registering for this course, the website of Coursera must
be visited to sign up along with providing basis details of personal information. The enrollment for this
course is for free and suggested for those having basic understanding of financial terms. The learning process
is 100% online and the schedule is highly customizable where deadlines can set by the learners flexibly. The
user experience is much good over this platform where 87% users are found to be reporting career benefits.

CONT.
Teaching & learning strategies & its pedagogy: The flexible learning strategies are employed for this
course. The pedagogy employed for teaching creates equitable & inclusive learning environments. Its
pedagogy involves connecting learners & focusing on networks. The content is available in video format
which is of high quality.
Assessment methodology: The assessment is done through quizzes taking place after every module and the
course ended with final assessment on the basis of which certifications are provided.
Progression opportunities: Several skills gained by learners through this course includes financial markets,
behavioral economics & finance. Further, opportunities for starting new career as well as other tangible
career benefits are there.

Future Perspective of MOOC
◦ MOOC may not replace the universities but could enhance the education quality by incorporating
blended learning.
◦ Accordingly, with the blended learning option, the on-campus courses offered by university would be
able to leverage the power of MOOC to facilitate interactive collaboration, testing, problem solving and
discussion in the off classroom time.
◦ Further, it would be taken as a part of sustainable goals due to facilitating lifelong learning.

Consequences of factors affecting
MOOC
◦ Those having poor accessibility to emerging technology & skills or experiences needs for operating
technology could harm the social & economic development both now and in the future.
◦ Politicians of all the nations are found to be eager in solving the problem of lack of education. This
provides for opportunities the MOOC platforms in a lenient regulatory regime.
◦ Also, learners are demanding for networking & collaboration at international level in a online learning
environment. This provides for greater innovation in MOOC.

CONCLUSION
◦ Through the above presentation, it has been identified that MOOC is providing better learning
opportunities for the learners across the world.
◦ The presentation also reflected deeper insights of MOOCs which is working on the way to make sure
inclusive learning opportunity to all.
◦ In this presentation the critical evaluation of free online course available over Coursera platform has been
carried out.

References
◦ Alyoussef, I. Y., 2021. Massive open online course (MOOCs) acceptance: The role of task-technology fit
(TTF) for higher education sustainability. Sustainability, 13(13), p.7374.
◦ Zubkov, A. D., 2020, March. MOOCs in blended English teaching and learning for students of technical
curricula. In Proceedings of the Conference “Integrating Engineering Education and Humanities for
Global Intercultural Perspectives” (pp. 539-546). Springer, Cham.
◦ Panchenko, L. and Muzyka, I., 2020. Analytical review of augmented reality MOOCs.
◦ Andone, D. and Mihaescu, V., 2018, September. Blending moocs into higher education courses-a case
study. In 2018 Learning With MOOCS (LWMOOCS) (pp. 134-136). IEEE.