An Economic appraisal of MOOC platforms: business models and impacts on higher education

Paul Belleflamme and Julien Jacqmin

Working Papers from LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier

Abstract: We start by using various economic and pedagogical concepts to understand the specificities of MOOC (Massive Online Open Courses) platforms. We then discuss how the private provision of MOOCs, seen as pure public goods, can be sustained. Based on the theory of multisided platforms, we analyse five ways to monetize the MOOC business. Our conclusion is that the most sustainable approach is what we call the `subcontractor model', flavored by touches of the other four models. We then claim that MOOC platforms can play a key transformative role in the higher education sector by making teaching practices evolve, rather than by replacing incumbent institutions. Finally, we derive a number of directions for public policy: governments should act to foster the cooperation between MOOC platforms and other higher education institutions, so as to improve the benefits that can arise from these technological innovations; a particular focus should also be given to professors in order to encourage them to innovate in their teaching practices.

Pages: 24 pages
Date: 2014-10, Revised 2014-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-exp
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.lameta.univ-montp1.fr/Documents/DR2014-11.pdf Revised version, 2014 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 500 Can't connect to www.lameta.univ-montp1.fr:80 (No such host is known. )

Related works:
Journal Article: An Economic Appraisal of MOOC Platforms: Business Models and Impacts on Higher Education (2016)
Working Paper: An economic appraisal of MOOC platforms: business models and impacts on higher education (2016)
Working Paper: An economic appraisal of MOOC platforms: business models and impacts on higher education (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lam:wpaper:14-11

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from LAMETA, Universtiy of Montpellier Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Patricia Modat ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).