MOOCs for Development? Who are the Indian Learners that take Massive Open Online Courses

Janesh Sanzgiri

As research into MOOCs matures, an area of exploration currently lacking in present literature is the usage and impact of MOOCs in the developing world. With increasing hype around the potential of MOOCs for the developing world, there is a need for an empirical understanding of existing MOOC learners. This lightning presentation will discuss the preliminary results of a pan-India survey of MOOC learners' demographics and experiences. These results will be compared with published research on MOOCs, to identify whether there exist differences in the profiles of learners that take MOOCs in the West and in India. Finally, this presentation will discuss how these findings will influence interviews with MOOC participants, and what the expected outcomes of this study could be.