Summary of TPACK-related journal 12

Title                            : Indonesian Perspective on Massive Open Online Courses: Opportunities and Challenges

Author                        : Harry B. Santoso

Year                            : 2018

Publisher                    : Journal of Educators Online

Source                        : www.eric.com

Among all kinds of distance education reforms, massive open online courses (MOOCs) can be considered as the most attractive topic in educational innovation studies in recent years. The original idea of a MOOC was proposed by Dave Cormier and Bryan Alexander in 2008 (Shen et al., 2016). The concept of MOOCs is to offer free and open access courses for massive numbers of learners from anywhere in the world (Gamage, Fernando, & Perera, 2015). The year 2012 became the year of the MOOC as stated by the New York Times because many MOOC platforms, such as Udacity, Coursera, and EdX, were introduced in that year. Those three were widely accepted as the fastest growing MOOC providers until now. The study aimed to identify the opportunities and challenges in implementing MOOCs from an Indonesian perspective. The researcher, Harry, observed four local MOOCs and analyzed various documents, including literature and government regulations.

As a result, the study revealed seven opportunities and seven challenges in implementing MOOCs in Indonesia as follows. Opportunities: (1) Indonesia has many potential MOOC students, (2) Government supports MOOCs through Presidential and Ministerial Regulations, (3) MOOCs have the potential to connect the nonformal and formal education in Indonesia, (4) MOOCs can be used as promotional tools by the university to attract potential students, (5) Quality and equity in education are needed to improve the standard of living of Indonesians, (6) Accessibility of qualified training is needed to improve professional skills, and (7) there are only a few MOOC providers in Indonesia, so the competition level is low. Challenges : (1) There are only a few Internet users outside Java island, (2) Digital literacy in Indonesia is still low, (3) Obligations that are regulated by the Indonesian government need to be fulfilled, (4) Course development in MOOC requires a lot of time and money, (5) Multidisciplinary knowledge and skills are required to make qualified courses, (6) English skills of Indonesians are still at a low to medium level, (7) There is no mature business model for MOOCs in Indonesia yet.