The Rise of MOOCs: The Literature Review of Research Progress and Hot Spots of MOOCs Education in Mainland China

Ruo-Yu Yang,Ye Zheng

doi:10.12973/eurasia.2017.01056a

Abstract

With the development of information technology, knowledge acquisition is not just limited to the traditional classroom. As a rising educational method, “Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)” has attracted extensive attention by educational circles. Taking 445 pieces of journal articles about educational study of MOOCs included in China Academic Journal Network Publishing database (CAJD) from 2013 to 2016 as samples, this study adopts bibliometric analysis method and visual knowledge network analysis tool CiteSpace to carry out in-depth exploration of aspects such as development status, developing trend, and hot subjects of educational study of MOOCs. The study discovers that the quantity of the articles about educational study of MOOCs presents a rising trend as a whole in the past four years. Highly cited articles mainly concentrate on pedagogy. A small part of articles focus on fields like library and information and computer science. The evolution course of study has experienced the process of “introduction-development-deepening” and its hot subjects include reflection on teaching practice, modern teaching means and existing problems and reform path. On this basis, the shortcomings of the existing researches are pointed out.

Highlights

With the development of information technology, knowledge acquisition is not just limited to the traditional classroom
The main conclusions of this paper include: (1) mainland China’s Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) education research presents an overall increasing trend, and it is in the rapid growth; (2) highly cited articles of MOOCs education research are mainly concentrated in pedagogy field and part of the literature involves library information, computer science and other fields
The research content lacks the contribution to the construction of a theoretic system; (3) the evolution of MOOCs education research reflects the progressive process “introducing-developing-deepening”; (4) high-frequency keywords include flipped classroom, online education, teaching reform, teaching mode, information technology, etc., and the research hotpots are reflection on teaching practice, research on modern teaching means, and research on existing problems and pathways to transformation

Summary

Introduction

With the development of information technology, knowledge acquisition is not just limited to the traditional classroom. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have made the educational process break through the traditional restrictions of time and space, and extend the way to acquire knowledge. In the winter of 2016, haze happened frequently in north, central and other regions of mainland China, leading to serious environmental pollution. Air pollution emergency plan was started many times in several places and primary and secondary schools suspended classes. In order to ensure the smooth progress in course teaching, many teachers adopted online teaching, which aroused wide public concern of the society. Along with the advent of the era of knowledge economy, MOOCs education will change people’s traditional learning idea and provide a new way for people to acquire knowledge more conveniently (Deng, 2013)

Objectives

Discussion

Conclusion