Understanding the MOOCs continuance: The role of openness and reputation

Abstract

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are classes delivered in an online environment with several features that are different from previous approaches to online education. The effectiveness of MOOCs is an open question as completion rates are substantially less than traditional online education courses. The objective of this study is to identify factors that enhance an individual’s intention to continue using MOOCs, which a limited amount of research has previously explored. A research model based on the information systems continuance expectation-confirmation model is proposed and tested with data collected in a large-scale study. Unique features of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) led to a noticeable growth Online Distance Learning (ODL). Openness is a highly remarkable property of MOOCs which bring new strategies in higher education and offer important socio-economic benefits with large scale and long life learning. Moreover, the Internet revolution and openness provide MOOCs’ players the opportunity to provide free non-credit courses from high ranking universities for anyone who has access to the Internet. In exploring the factors that determine the continual usage of MOOCs and in order to establish the ultimate viability and sustainability of MOOCs we took into consideration the main characteristics of MOOCs. Therefore, this study examines the role of openness and reputation on MOOCs users satisfaction and continuous intention to use. This study extends the IS continuance model by adding perceived openness and perceived reputation to be used in the ODL context. A field survey was carried out to collect data from 316 users of MOOCs spread across 74 countries and involving three main players of MOOCs (Coursera, edX, and Udacity). Partial Least Squares was employed to analyze the data and a measurement model was computed. The research model explained a substantial percentage of the variance for the intention to continue using MOOCs, which is significantl...