THE EUROPEAN INITIATIVE FOR MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES /MOOCs/ AND THE CHALLENGES FOR ITS IMPLEMENTATION IN BULGARIA

Abstract

The advances in technology and changing demand from higher educational institutions and business as well as the possibility for reducing costs and generating income has led to the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) explosion. Over the last years, MOOCs have received a great deal of attention from the academic community and, the business world. MOOCs paradigm appears as a very advantageous and commercially interesting solution for many companies looking to implement effective training programs for the employees. Consequently, MOOCs have the potential to revolutionize the corporate learning industry. The paper presents some results of documentary research and online research both conducted in the framework of the Project BizMOOC “Knowledge Alliance to enable a European-wide exploitation of the potential of MOOCs for the world of business” 562286-EPP-1-2015-1- AT-EPPKA2-KA involving 11 EU countries. The presented comparative analysis' results are connected with the identification of the current state of MOOCs in Europe, respectively in Bulgaria, and the outlining of the main challenges for the implementation and the boost of the MOOCs initiative. In the end some conclusions and summarizations concerning the discussed issues are presented.