MOOCs and/or eLectures — A means of virtualizing university education?

In this paper we discuss the potential offered by MOOCs to virtualize traditional university studies and confront the promises made by their promoters with experiences gained in Germany and some other European countries over the last more than 25 years. Though the up scaling of numbers as well as the involvement of some of the most prestigious universities in the world distinguish MOOCs from most online courses run at European universities, they have enough in common to justify such a comparison. We argue that both teachers and students need special incentives in order to keep them at online teaching and learning in the long run. As the experience at the University of Freiburg shows, content production can be done as the spin-off result of normal teaching, if no cost-covering fees for online education can be charged.