MOOCS as extensions of the university

Abstract

The technological advances have modified substantially the ways of reporting and relating the humanity. Also the manners of agreeing and extending the knowledge, opening the processes of education-learning for new meanings and interactions. The top education takes part fully of his realities, trying to harmonize his secular tradition with looking of a future of changes and
constant innovations. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) constitute a form of open education built upon idea of unlocking knowledge in order to make it accessibl e to multiple audiences. MOOCs represent one of
the most innovative and suggestive options for universities to reach the larger society. One of MOOCs’ oft-cited strengths is the provision of li fe-long and flexible learning, adaptable to each student’s motivations without limits in the time and in the space. In addition, MOOCs are a complementary or alternative way to expand universities’ influence beyond their classrooms and
their official undergraduate and graduate programs. It is from this perspective that we will link such initiatives to universities’ outreach efforts, contributing to update universities’ pedagogical, social and cultural missions.
Without obviating either his controversies, or the risks and difficulties that the MOOCs incorporate into the university occupation, we organized the text presented here around four major points: the role of universities within the local-global dialogue, universities’ democratization through open access to knowledge, universities’ outreach as a pedagogical and social responsibility and MOOCs as a form of higher education in the context of a network society.