Perceptions of Library and Information Science Professionals Towards Massive Open Online Course: A Survey

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Kaushik, Anna

Affiliations: Deputy Librarian, University of Kota, Kota, Rajasthan, India, (E): [email protected]

Abstract: Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) has emerged as a burning topic in every field, including library and information science (LIS) domain. Thus, LIS professionals are taking interest in MOOC and involving deeply through various ways. This study aimed to get perceptions of LIS professionals towards MOOC and found that the majority of LIS professionals who participated in this survey, were working as librarians and LIS teachers, they knew about MOOC from one year through e-resources and search engines but they had not participated in any MOOC due to reasons of unfamiliarity with online environment and also because they had not heard about MOOCs. Besides this, it was also discovered that MOOCs are helpful in terms of learning important topics, but ‘copyright and licensing issues of reading materials’ were identified as the main barrier. LIS professionals preferred to use sole-based learning through MOOCs, which are available free of cost and provide a certificate after accomplishing a course; those who wanted to develop their own MOOCs will use it fully in LIS domain in future. This study may be helpful in knowing diverse perceptions and insights of LIS professionals towards MOOC and in accelerating MOOC movements in LIS domain.

Keywords: Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), Library and information science professionals, Survey, Perception, Online learning

DOI: 10.18329/09757597/2015/8203

Journal: World Digital Libraries - An international journal, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 113-126, 2015