Social Sustainability of Online Learning Platforms in Higher Education an Indian Perspective

Abstract

Education system has gone through substantial changes with changing course of the time. Traditional classroom teaching is being transformed into online platform based with the advancement in technology. Online learning platforms offer students with the required educational resources as well as provide opportunities to students in remote areas to interact with teachers from high ranked universities. Therefore, these online platforms have attracted educators, learners and researchers globally for its massiveness and excellent quality. Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is among one of the online educational platforms where learners can obtain their courses at their own time and convenience. Moreover, these online courses are easily accessible to all students worldwide. However, recent researches on the effectiveness of online education platforms have revealed several limitations which needed further attention. One major issue is low completion rate of these courses. Due to the free of cost enrolment, online educational platforms are truly massive in nature. The openness provided by such platforms makes it impossible to track students. Furthermore, limited research on MOOC platforms also prohibits the growth and application of these courses for skill enhancement of working professionals. Especially the effective application of these courses in a beneficial way in developing countries like India should be understood. In the current study, a quantitative study was conducted for understanding the adoption, continuation and cancellation behaviour of MOOC participants and social sustainability of MOOCs in India. Moreover, the study is intended to understand and analyse the impact of different factors of MOOC adoption on the online educational platforms including Coursera, edX, National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM), upGrad and Simplilearn in higher education in India. Questionnaires were sent to Indian students who attended MOOCs at least