Community MOOC project
Massive Open Online Courses are bringing partial and full-semester length courses from the world’s top universities/institutions to learners who only need a computer with internet access, for free. The world’s leading MOOC providers are coursera.org, edx.org. Find more on MOOCs at class-central.com.
What this project is about?
Many potential MOOC learners are poor (the segment of the population who need education most to change their lives) and do not have access to computers/tablets/smartphones or low-cost reliable internet or power. This project is about gathering a virtual forum to discuss and crowdsource solutions to make MOOCs more accessible to under-served learners.
Who is behind the project?
Jima Ngei and Becky Ogbouma, the project co-initiators are among the world’s leading MOOC learners by number of course completed. Even though Jima lives in Nigeria, and Becky recently moved from Congo to Canada which are some of the world’s poorest countries.
What is our motivation?
Living in a region (Sub-Saharan Africa) where opportunities to get out of poverty are few and far between, we recognize the potentials of MOOCs to make a difference in peoples life trajectories. From participating in a few hundred MOOCs where participants number on the tens to low hundreds of thousand per MOOC, we have read countless stories from people who are both bothered by the problems and wish they could do something about it – instructors, staff and learners – from all around the world.
What makes our project special?
First, this project is an optional part of the coursework for a MOOC «Launching New Ventures» taught by professors from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. A learning by doing project where MOOC learners from all over the world (several thousands of us) learn free from leading professors how to launch a new venture (including crowdfunding).
This project is also about a problem that is very up close, personal and dear to us (giving people opportunity to change their life situations through education). The project aims to crowdsource solutions to extend the current reach of MOOCs to a huge subset (over a billion) of the world’s 7 billion population, who do not currently have easy access to the high-quality education available through the MOOC model.
Lastly, it is in and of itself evidence/an example of empowering poor, underprivileged learners (such as the co-project initiators) via MOOC learning.
Why should anyone support us?
Maybe, our dream resonates within you, but like most of us, you may have also felt overwhelmed by the size of the problem. We think that if we pool resources – time, skills and funds – we might as a team make some impact. So do visit us at moocsbymoocs.ideascale.com and possibly also do back our crowdfunding.
And – most importantly – what do we need the money for?
This crowdfunding is mostly important, for its symbolic, motivational and marketing values. It aims to answer the biggest question of the project which is, do the project goals resonate deeply with people that they are willing to support a venture seeking solutions?
If we are successfully backed, the funds generated here would be given to people who present crowdvoted winning ideas on improving MOOC products especially to underserved communities.
Here’s our business concept proposal:
This campaign was created as a learning by doing exercise in a course called Launching New Ventures. The creator(s) of this campaign remain fully responsible for verifying the facts and fulfilling the commitments communicated on this page. #LNV15