ABSTRACT
The idea of offering courses completely online, without any limits on time or place, is very attractive. Participants can adapt their learning process to their own priorities, pace and available time. In 2011, thousands – and sometimes even hundreds of thousands – of people enthusiastically applied to enroll in massive open online courses (MOOCs). Some commentators predict that MOOCs could change universities’ business model (Daniel, 2012). On the other hand, MOOCs have huge numbers of drop-outs. Purely online courses face certain difficulties when it comes to a lack of presence and ‘immediacy’ for the participants, together with possible gaps in expected prior knowledge, both of which can cause participants to drop out.
