ABSTRACT
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is working to improve lives in Latin America and the Caribbean. IDB is offering massive open online courses (MOOCs) on key social and economic topics to scale up the capacity of development practitioners in the region. This chapter presents preliminary findings of the first survey exploring how such MOOCs are impacting the academic, professional, and social life of learners in Latin America and the Caribbean. Enabling and restricting factors to use the knowledge gained in the MOOCs at the learners’ workplace were identified. Such findings show that MOOCs on social and economic topics offer valuable learning opportunities, inspire learners, and empower them to apply their knowledge to improve their lives. Such findings are especially apparent in developing countries where access to formal education is more limited and where access to, use of, and skills in information and communication technology are also more limited.
