Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) (remote asynchronous)

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^{“I don’t believe in flashy items in a MOOC, to make it interesting and avoid making it boring. I deeply believe that the spark should come from within the content, and the pedagogy. That really makes us stand apart from other developers; we truly engage with your content from the inside out, and co-create it with you”.} Tikvah Breimer (MSc MAEd MSc), director, independent senior advisor



🎙 Keynote: Big ideas and modular curriculum design.
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Release summer ‘24  

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‘MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) offer a powerful and flexible channel to disseminate European Research Council (ERC) results to a wider public, within the international scientific community and in the larger societal environment’ (MOOCS4Europe 2017).‘ The creation of a common space for research has represented a pillar of European Union political action since its birth. Research projects financed under the European umbrella have both strongly impacted on the European cultural landscape and responded to pressing societal challenges’ (MOOCS4Europe). A MOOC can be a great way to capitalise on and disseminate a European program that is about to end, and allow its insights, materials and value to have an impact well into the near future whilst making it more accessible for a wider and more diverse audience.

A MOOC can also complement and invigorate the existing course or degree you’re offering with high quality modules. The possibilities for experimentaiton are infinate. For example, you can use a MOOC as a form of onboarding; to first activate prior knowledge and consolidate new students’ basic knowledge on certain issues before they embark on your university course. Or you can try to reach new language targetgroups, now that AI allows you to instantly translate/transcript your videos.

So, what is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) - and what is it not?

A MOOC is a course that is completely unfacilitated, and asynchronous - students can follow it at any time, in whatever pace they wish. 2012 is often marked as the start of European MOOCs, even as, they never soared as high as in the US, simply also because our way of financing students is quite differently. Even so, ‘they have been a disruptive innovation in the academic environment in Europe’ (MOOCs4Europe 2017).

Ever since 2012, MOOCs have experienced their own hype cycle and what we see is that the original concept, of reaching thousands of students, is no longer here. The market is simply too saturated. The original idea, of the world at your feet, the sheer scale of dissemination of your ideas and education, is not the reality in Europe (see i.e. Helsdingen and Wild 2024). 

Even so, MOOCs are still widely used at university and beyond (see i.e. also New European Bauhaus Academy). 

So, what makes the MOOCs interesting today? The concept of self-paced learning, in an asynchronous way, is a valuable basis for all kinds of forms. For example, in combining campus learning with online learning, by offering blended approaches. See for example the Erasmus exchange programs (so called Blended Intensive Programs). 

MOOCs offer a beautiful testing ground, for free experimenations. That’s where the attractiveness of the MOOC remains (see i.e. Helsdingen and Wild 2024).

An important aspect of MOOCs today, is also becoming where the platforms and servers are based in which the MOOCs are developed. ‘Originally, a core group of US leading universities that have set up the three platforms aggregated two thirds of the MOOCs audience. As a consequence, control of the MOOC phenomenon largely remained with US based providers‘ (MOOCs4Europe 2017). Especially for Europe, there is now a strong urge to keep the platforms within the continent to ensure optimal academic freedom and approaches that better resonate with European values, such as topics that include sustainablity (see i.e. Helsdingen and Wild 2024).

STUDIOBlended has been involved with MOOCs since the early pioneering stages at universities.

A MOOC takes your knowledge domain into a learning platform online, and is in principle accessible for many because it is for free, or quite affordable, and learners can obtain a certificate issued by your institute. Depending on your ambition, we are talking about some 5,000 to hunderds of thousands of learners over a couple of years - but you may also want to actually have a smaller impactful scope. And as discussed before, this is actually also where the trend is going.

We can distinguish MOOCs that are used for executive education - with enrollment fees, and MOOCs that follow the original spirit of massive OPEN / freely available university education.

There is a challenge too. We should always realise a MOOC is a course, it is not about simply copying content to an online framework or dropbox where learners move from video to video. There are a lot of bad examples out there, especially if researchers approach the MOOC merely from their content perspective, and not as experts in learning design.

If you pay peanuts, for sure you will get monkeys. A course requires rigorous design of how we’ll make learning visible (see assessment) and of the learning journey (see design journey). Elements in your MOOC don’t have value in themselves, it’s the learners/humans that create the value. In other words: what are learners doing with what you offer them? How do you evaluate the quality of the education?

What we offer you
At STUDIOBlended we work strikingly differently than educational advisors you may be used to. We don’t merely take your content, and then translate it into digital online learning.

We go over and above. Partnering with you, we transform the content from the inside out and then create effective and resilient education that stands the test of time. It’s really a whole different approach.

STUDIOBlended stands out by offering you a fully modular curriculum design. We will always encourage you to go modular. What is your ambition for your investment? A modular approach allows you to capitalise on your investment, because you can use modules from the MOOC in other education or settings as well. This quality is only possible though, if you design for it.

We are on the lookout for a pedagogy that resonates with your content. We only work bespoke for you as a client, we never copy paste solutions.

You’re usually dealing with a team; we work with high quality, and maximum simplicity. We come alongside you as an external indepenent senior advisor, and partner with you to get things done. We have robust experience in project management within academia. 

Why a MOOC: is it still relevant?
We have always taken a step back, to just watch the hype of MOOCs run its course, and see where the ‘hindsight’ is, to not over invest in the hype, but also not throw away the baby with the bathwater.

We already discussed some important trends in the fields of the MOOC. Let’s look at some other aspects too.

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) seems widely spread by now, but at the same time, we still see some resistance to it within universities and beyond. Perhaps mainly because it is by default, unfacilitated - there is no teaching staff, and it is at scale. For sure, a MOOC requires rigorous design to allow for these qualities.

We see some signs of the day of the open access MOOCs being over (see i.e. Shah 2025). Some 20 years ago, the MOOC started with pioneers that were frustrated with universities taking so long to take decisions and make education accessible to all. Yet, the MOOC never achieved the transformative potential promised in the early hype with its peak in 2012-2015. ‘The movement lost its way as monetization increasingly took precedence over accessibility’ (see Shah 2025). Originally the spirit of the technology platforms was to be “committed to making the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it” (Coursera). But now, many are introducing paywalls, and non paying users are no longer able to access the material (see also Shah 2018 on EdX and Futurelearn). 

But even with a paywall, the MOOC has enormous potential still. A MOOC course+certificate can cost as low as a 50 dollar treshhold. Such a treshhold can also greatly boost commitment of students to take the course and finish it. The willingness (and ability) to pay, doesnt’ have to be a limit, it can give more authority to the certificate and stimulate more qualitative educational design and development.

A MOOC is all about standardisation of experience. It is cheap or free because you can provide a single solution to a large number of people. Whilst AI is very much still in the early stages with mass education, there is no contrast with a MOOC - we can indeed use AI within the logic of the MOOC for a variety of approaches that more personalise the experience. These include for example discussant AI’s that help and guide learners gain more knowledge on certain topics, and add an important sensation of personalisation and dialogue.

So then, what is the hindsight? We expect the winds of change, to be simply a new chapter for the MOOC, with new horizons.

When we look at European Research Council programs, ‘very often dissemination issues have proved to be a difficult task, as most scientific investigators lack the expertise as well as concrete channels to communicate their research mission and results to scientific communities, decision-makers, industry and the general public.’ (...)  The European Research Council is aware of the pivotal importance for researchers to communicate the exceptional contribution they are making to the progress of scientific inquiry. To comply with this objective, ERC’s own mission statement invites researchers to search for a single strategy, suggesting that «a media mix can be a very effective way forward, allowing to combine traditional supports, as printed material, articles and press releases, public talks, with audio-visual tools, web 2.0 and social media».’ (MOOCS4Europe 2017).

The Anacapri manifesto states (MOOCs4Europe 2017): ‘MOOCs represent that media mix [that the ERC wants in dissemination] at its best, through open access top quality courses, MOOCs combine the reputational factor of outstanding scientific research with an extremely successful multimedia format, which has become rapidly familiar to tens of millions of learners worldwide. This is all the more the case considering that production and dissemination of MOOCs do not require particularly challenging technological and/or organizational investments.’

The MOOC is an excellent opportunity to create very high quality products/modules, and can be developed to maximalise its usage, not just for the MOOC itself, but also into other courses, advertisement/marketing, lectures and beyond into dissemination, client work and usages you cannot even begin to imagine yet now. Our modular approach also allows for flexibilisation, and differentiation in the MOOC.

How we work
Creating a MOOC requires a careful approach, as once the end product is there, it’s in principle static for years to come.

As part of the initial scoping with you, we will ensure essential parameters for the online course. One of them, is audience. The other one is envisioning what success looks like: what behavioral change do you wish to see in your audience?

It is only possible to have a decade proof MOOC content-wise - if you design for that. Have a look at our Design Studio to discover how we do that. The timeless and decade-robust ‘technical curriculum design’ we offer you, ensures you will be able to use the modules well into the future. We further invigorate and amplify your curriculum, with world class pedagogy that resonates authentically with the course envisioned - it’s always bespoke design, never a copy paste from other MOOCs.

After design, we develop the learning journey for you in the selected learning management system. We co-create the various modules with the relevant staff members of your team. This truly is where we connect with your entire team, and spark their energy and co-create great products. Have a look also at our design journey, to find out more about our approach to course development.

Our agile team
Our approach involves collaborations from within our pool of international highly skilled and qualified experts.

We also readily and beautifully create impactful collaborations with other experts in the field, where relevant for certain components of your MOOC and do not shy away from making the right connections with experts, for the sake of helping you reach a beautiful end product, and actually a lot of collective co-creation and growth within your team to increase impact.
 

Partnering

We come alongside a client, and operate as equal partners throughout the project duration of an advisory assignment.

Our senior advisors expect to have an equal partner relationship with the client’s main focal point (i.e. a coordinator), whereby client and advisor work together, combining the advisor’s specialist knowledge with relevant knowledge about the content, the organisation and access to the relevant departments.

Shared responsibility and joint decision making for the sake of ownership, allow the success and relevance of the identified outcomes and outputs.

Timeline

For the timeline much depends on whether you are an academic institution, or otherwise.

For academia, our experience is that we need at last some 6 months from initiation to delivering the end product of a fully operational MOOC. Much has to do with the tempo in which decisions are made, insights about the knowledge domain are included, team alignment and sign off processes.

In principle, with effective teamwork with your own project manager, we can deliver within 6 months.

Price

The price of a fully operational MOOC much depends on what you aspire.

Let’s have a call to learn more about your needs and aspirations, and then we can draft a tailor made quotation for you.

Key projects

StudioBlended is currently partnering with an institute for capacity building within a European University, to co-create an impactful MOOC for this client (2025-June 2026). The MOOC is built into  the Coursera learning management system. The curriculum design is completely modular, and minds the hype cycle of big ideas so that the MOOC is expected to be decade proof.

For this MOOC, we collaborated closely with a filmmaker from our pool of freelancers. StudioBlended brought in a strong project management component, deep interest in the content of the videos and the researchers involved to be able to give good feedback, and our experience with podcasting - spoken language and brief clips.

European funded program.

More information follows soon.



As early as 2013, the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) was an early adopter of MOOCs, and invested in experiments.

Image: analogy of open building used in proposal to IHS. Visualisation of primary, secondary and tertiary systems within the built (learning) environment. Source: Geiser 2006 in Osman 2010:244.

Upon invitation by the head of Education, our independent senior advisor (then staff member) delivered a proposal called ‘Training as a product - A suggestion’. The proposal included a suggestion for an ‘open building’ training product offered by this institute for capacity building/development. With open building Tikvah Breimer (MSc MAEd MSc) draws heavily from her Master thesis about open building and incremental housing (see Erasmus University repository).

The proposal includes a strong element of ‘time’ robust design, which infuses our work still today.

The proposal dates back to 2014, but is still decade strong and relevant today, and resonates in all our technical design. 

References

MOOC4Europe (2017) ‘Anicapri Manifesto’ (available upon request). A collaborative expression by the following representatives : Calise, M., University of Naples Federico II, Kloos, C.D. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Pierre Dillenbourg Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Helsdingen, A.S., Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Hesse, F.W. Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM) Karlsson, G. Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm
Timo Kos Delft University of Technology, Catherine Mongenet France Université Numerique, Shimshon, G., Imperial College, London
Bruno Siciliano University of Naples Federico II, Ludwig-Maximilians, M.W., University, München


Helsdingen, A and Wild, U. (2024) ‘Learning without borders: The Future of MOOCs in Europe’. Workshop. Ninth European MOOCs stakeholders Summit 2025, June 30. Available: https://emoocs2025.telecom-paris.fr/program-of-the-conference/ (Accessed: October 27, 2025).

Osman, A. and Sebake, N. (2010), ‘“Time” as a key factor in design and technical decision-making: concepts of accessibility, affordability, participation, choice, variety and change in the South African Housing sector’, Human Settlements Review, Vol 1, No 1, pp. 236-252. Available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368555871_Upgrading_informal_settlements_in_South_Africa_A_partnership-based_approach (Accessed: October 27, 2025).

Shah, 2025. The Day MOOCs truly died: Coursera’s preview mode Kills Free learning. The report, July 28.

Shah, D. (2018) ‘EdX Puts Up a paywall for Graded Assignments’. The report, Dec 17. Available: https://www.classcentral.com/report/coursera-preview-mode-paywall/ (Accessed: October 27, 2025).

Wild, U. and Gimbrere, M. (2017) ‘MOOCs: introducing flexibility in academia’. Proceedings of Work in Progress Papers of the Experience and Research Tracks and Position Papers of the Policy Track at EMOOCs 2017 co-located with the EMOOCs 2017 Conference. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. Aachen: Rheinisch-Westfaelische Technische Hochschule Aachen. Available: https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1841/P07_111.pdf (Accessed: October 27, 2025).

Innovative and deep pedagogy and resilient education that stands the test of time - by design.