A Study On Development Situation And Features Of Massive Open Online Course

Massive open online course(MOOC) is online course aimed at general public. Elite courses from top institutes can be learned online for free. MOOC prevails throughout the world from its emergence, and has become the most popular curriculum model in recent years. As one of three largest platforms of MOOC, edX platform is based on the concept of non-profit and purpose of promoting education reform. In order to reform traditional education, edX collects data from MOOC to discover the informative facts. The combination of MOOC and edX symbolizes the latest achievement and trend of the combination of education and information technology. A study of MOOC on edX is conducive to realize the development and changing of top institutes, thus the development of domestic MOOC and the reform of higher education can be facilitated.In this study, the method of archives research, comparative research and diachronic research are adopted to illustrate the development of MOOC on edX platform. At first, this study illuminates the information technological background of MOOC, and realizes the main factors that influence the development of MOOC. Secondly, based on the development of MOOC on edX, this study summarizes the history of MOOC. Thirdly, this study presents the current development situation of MOOC on edX and its latest trends. Fourthly, the features of MOOC on edX are summarized based on the analysis of the data collected from edX platform. At last, this study proposes the references and enlightments that are conducive to domestic MOOC development and higher education reform.