Massive Open Online Courses are a good example of open educational resources. Anyone who can enroll is able to access the learning content. Often MOOCS are hosted by reputable research institutions. Although no fees are charged, no completion academic credentials are issued either. Often the impetus for a reputable research institution to develop and offer a MOOC is to attract talent to enroll in its academic programs or to attract collaborators.  It may well do this, however, a MOOC opens the world of rich educational content to those who may not otherwise have access to such institutions.  A high quality open course can increase the visibility of a faculty member and the institution offering the course. In a strange twist, the Atlantic (June 2015) highlights many MOOC participants are not ‘students’ but teachers themselves; they access MOOCs as professional development and to learn how others teach!

Some of the primary companies who have partnered with research institutions to produce MOOCS are:

1. edX – is based on an Open Source platform, a non-profit and is governed by Harvard University and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
2. Coursera – professes to have more than 15 million learners and more than 1400 courses
3. Udacity – a start up offering ‘nano-degrees.’  Read more about them in this New York Times profile.
4. Canvas – Instructure in the company that built Canvas, a learning management system.  But Canvas.net also is the source of a number of free online courses its users have contributed from all over the world.

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