Types of MOOCs

Donald Clark, Gráinne Conole, and other experts provide an excellent review of the types of MOOCs:

• transferMOOCs – where existing courses are transferred to a MOOC, e.g Coursera courses
•  madeMOOCs – which are more innovative, making effective use of video and interactive material and are more quality driven, e.g. Udacity courses
•  synchMOOCs – with a fixed start and end date e.g Coursera or Udacity courses
•  asynchMOOCs – which don’t have fixed start and end dates and have more flexible assignment deadlines.  These courses can literally be taken anytime, anywhere and clearly work better over different time zones, e.g Coursera or Udacity courses
•  adaptiveMOOCs – which provide personalised learning experiences/ paths through the content, based on dynamic assessment, data gathering on the course, network building, e.g. Cogbooks courses
•  groupMOOCs –where the focus is on collaboration in small groups aiming to increase student retention, e.g NovoEd courses
• cMOOCs (connectivistMOOCS pioneered by Geperge Siemens and Stephen Downes) – which emphasize active learner exploration,  personal learning network, connection/ collaboration across a network of other learners, generation on knowledge, and reflection on learning.  cMOOCs have used a traditional LMS, such as Moodle, as well as technologies such as wikis, blogs, and Twitter
•  xMOOCs – that provide instructor-guided lesson focusing on knowledge duplication, e.g. university MOOCs
•  miniMOOCSs  - which are much smaller than the traditional massive MOOCs
•  tMOOCs (task based MOOCs) – where participants receive guided instruction from an individual/ recorded materials, complete required tasks to progress are, and acquire skills to complete certain types of work  e.g ds106 a Digital Storytelling MOOC
• GamesMOOC - which uses a guild-hosting site that allows guilds from massively multiplayer online games to create a spot for their groups outside of the game

Sources:

• Apostolos Koutropoulos. MOOCs in Higher Education: Options, Affordances, Pitfalls (Part 1). http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1205/moocs-in-higher-education-options-affordances-pitfalls-part-1
•  Audrey, got MOOC? http://blogs.pstcc.edu/teachtech/2013/01/30/got-mooc/
• Author. Types of MOOC and what they mean. http://ditresearchmethods.wordpress.com/2013/03/27/three-types-of-mooc/
• Donald Clark, MOOCs: Taxonomy of 8 Types of MOOC.  http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/moocs-taxonomy-of-8-types-of-mooc.html
• Gráinne Conole. A new classification for MOOCs. http://mooc.efquel.org/a-new-classification-for-moocs-grainne-conole/ 
• Martin Lugton. What is a MOOC? What are the different types of MOOC? xMOOCs and cMOOCs. http://reflectionsandcontemplations.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/what-is-a-mooc-what-are-the-different-types-of-mooc-xmoocs-and-cmoocs/

Read about MOOCs