The higher education system is facing a time of disruption. The rapid development of Massive Open Online Courses, MOOCs, has generated a lively debate. The effect on the existing higher education is in focus. Can MOOCs really be an alternative to face to face classroom teaching? Despite this legitimate scepticism, the number of universities offering MOOCs increase at a rapid pace. As MOOCs went from an experimental phase to become well established in 2012, more and more universities jumped on the bandwagon. Some clearly see an opportunity, while others seem to join without a clearly formulated strategy. Jumping or not, all universities are today expected to have an answer to the question: What are your plans within the MOOC area?

The disruptive innovation theory indicates that we can expect dramatic changes
So far, the phenomenon follows the disruptive innovation theory by Clayton Christensen: incumbents regard the new service to be of a much lower quality; the new innovation target underserved or new customer segments; the service is offered at much lower price levels; the offer is less complete but holds the potential to develop fast meeting demands of present customers, “ordinary students” in this case. The disruptive innovation theory indicates that we can expect dramatic changes within the higher education industry. The core of the disruptive nature of MOOCs is, compared to ordinary face to face higher education, the very limited incremental cost to add one additional student along with that the service is ubiquitous. These two characteristics combined, lay the foundation for a very fast penetration. This pattern has earlier been seen for other internet based business models challenging established industries. Läs mer