ABSTRACT
An open learning platform, called the e-Institute, was established by the World Bank Group on a pilot basis in 2011. The e-Institute was a means of delivering high-quality; critical learning products that focused on self-paced and virtually facilitated e-courses. The e-Institute pilot was taking place fortuitously at a time when learning was being disrupted on a global scale by the emergence of massive open online courses (MOOCs). The availability of MOOC content in local languages is also another consistent request from many developing countries. The World Bank Group (WBG), experience with implementing e-courses through the e-Institute and later through the two pilot MOOCs have been significant milestones in introducing learning and innovation in its capacity-building programs. Rather than typical college students enrolling in MOOCs to earn university credentials and certificates, MOOCs focusing on development topics are of interest to a different set of learners, namely, development practitioners.
