Sustaining or Disruptive: Future of MOOC Innovation in tertiary Education Still Up for Grabs

An innovative educational technology, Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), has been operating in the public sphere for a decade now. Essentially, MOOC is an online course of the kind and calibre offered in higher education institutions, e.g., universities and colleges, that supports exceptional connectivity, and is free. Global participation in MOOC has been compelling, but uneven: take-up is mostly by adult, employed, degree-holding, lifelong learners, and serious investment is mostly by elite European and North American tertiary education institutions. After a clamorous five years of inflated expectations and over-optimism, MOOC slipped into a period of quiet correction and strengthening. Now it is climbing the “Slope of enlightenment”, so more than ever, this is not the time to succumb to the ostrich effect, leaving the early and steadfast adopters of MOOC-based education to carve out substantive portions of the global tertiary education sector, via Internet transnationalism. In the face of this threat, reputable tertiary education institutions not already involved with MOOC, must weigh-in on shaping MOOC-based education in service of their nations. Deterring these institutions from responding so, is the apprehension stirred up in MOOC's early hype cycle that it is unequivocally disruptive to education as it is presently conducted. This paper makes the case that sustaining and disruptive innovation outcomes are equally authentic, and outlines a tertiary education business model against which an education institution can analyse the viability of it entering the MOOC-based education sector.