Extending the MOOCversity. A Multi-layered and Diversified Lens for MOOC Research

While there are many ways at looking at MOOCs at a global scale, this paper seeks to identify a number of factors according to which MOOCs are considered to be successfully implemented in Europe. The principles behind the US-American MOOC higher education landscape appear to be mainly of financial and reputational relevance which are neither pedagogically nor cross-culturally driven. By analogy, European universities try hard to follow the same path. For the purposes of this paper, a brief examination of existing MOOCs is undertaken before presenting intercultural factors and learning theory mechanisms that might call for a diversified and thus different approach than the one adopted by the US digital agenda. A European lens taking into account culture-sensitive and learning theoretical factors might therefore call for an additional classification of MOOCs, one that we call enhanced MOOCs, in short, eMOOCs