What can MOOCs mean for the corporate world?

I recently hosted a webinar with the same title for Training Magazine Network. Below are the slides and you'll also find them on Slideshare.



Ever since I became active as a learning professional, I've been struck with the 'wall' that seems to exist between the education world and the corporate training world. It is almost like we live in parallel universes. We tend to focus on different priorities (with cost efficiency being the exception), we prefer different platforms (with Moocle being the exception embraced by both sides) and we go to different conferences (Online Educa being the exception to that rule). Obviously there is a link: the 'output' from the education system becomes the 'input' for the workforce. But beyond that we have all interest to look at each other's work more often as we all focus essentially on the same: helping people learn stuff.

So that's why I think the corporate world should take a more active role in the MOOC discussion. At this point in time corporate training is either unaware of the biggest hype of the last years in education, or taking a 'wait and see' approach. My reader feed is exploding with MOOC-related messages that predictably have switched tone from euphoria to scepticism (according the Gartner's hype cycle logic). But those discussion remain centered around the academic model. Can MOOCs be useful for corporations? I think so. Of course, a MOOC is a format as other format and as such never the sole answer to all learning needs. MOOCs for example need scale and openness and won't work well in a heavily controlled context. I do think within these conditions there is room for the MOOC format within corporate training. I've let my imagination run wild on that before.  The original MOOC (based on connectivism theory and dubbed cMOOC) and the kind that became popular two years ago (called xMOOC) are really different approaches and maybe a corporate MOOC will redefine the M and O to suit their particular context as well.