Opportunities and challenges of MOOCs: perspectives from Asia

The recent growth of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has led to discussions of technology-based instruction revolutionizing traditional higher-education teaching. Here we analyze the origin of MOOCs, as well as trends in education initiated by these courses, and compare them with OpenCourseWare (OCW), YouTube EDU, iTunes U. Specifically, this paper will discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by MOOCs, from the perspective of Asian countries, with reference to economics, culture, language, and instruction.