Computers in Human Behavior xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Learning outside the classroom through MOOCs

Tayeb Brahimi a, Akila Sarirete b,⇑
a
Engineering College, ECE Department, Effat University, Saudi Arabia
b
Engineering College, CS Department, Effat University, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The rapid increase use of information technologies throughout educational institutions is changing the
Available online xxxx way teachers and students learn, work, and establish collaboration. The learning cycle is an ongoing pro-
cess that is designed to improve the quality of, as well as collaboration among learners. Recent announce-
Keywords: ments from top Universities to turn to new forms of educational delivery called ‘‘MOOCs’’ (Massive Open
MOOCs Online Courses), have not only captured the interest of academics and students in higher education, but
Collaborative learning also the interest of students and teachers in the K-12 environment, in home schooling, or outside the
Learning outside the classroom
classroom in general. With MOOCs, the teaching method is moving from the traditional transfer learning
Social media
model where the teacher serves as the repository and transmitter of knowledge to the flipped classroom
model where the learner interacts with other students, peers, and has flexible access to all information
and resources around him before coming to the classroom. With the huge amount of online educational
material this has become a useful and beneficial method in teaching. Speaking at the Association of
Community College Trustees’ leadership meeting in Seattle, October 2013 (gatesfoundation.org), Bill
Gates said ‘‘The value of MOOCs comes when you use them to create hybrids that are the best of both
worlds. Rather than having the instructor lectures during class and then send the students home with
assignments, many instructors are now using MOOCs to flip the classroom’’. He also added ‘‘I’d be the first
to say this is a period of experimentation, but we’ll learn much faster if people jump in and engage’’.
Hester Tinti-KaneVice President of Marketing and Social Media Strategy, Pearson (Seaman & Tinti-Kane
(2013)), said ‘‘The more we know about effective uses of technologies for teaching and learning, the faster
we can adopt these new practices, facilitate their proliferation across higher education, and increase stu-
dent success’’. These massive open online courses which have global reach, unlimited participation, and
open access over the internet via a combination of social networking and video podcasts is attracting a
huge variety of students of different ages, nationalities, backgrounds, abilities, interests, etc. It’s all based
on connection where you have the ability to learn, interact, and collaborate not only locally and globally
but also universally from anywhere and at any time. With MOOCs providers in the USA (Coursera, edX,
Udacity), Europe (FUN, Iversity), UK (FutureLearn), Middle East (Rwaq, Edraak), or in Australia
(Open2study) students can work on learning content outside of the classroom, at their own pace, and
practice the application of what they learned in class. While some educators consider MOOCs as the
future of higher education, others said they represent the beginning of education downfall. According
to many surveys, it has been found that faculty members are not rejecting technology, in fact most of
them believe in the ability of technology to bring transformative change to education but at the same
time they feel that commercial considerations, rather than pedagogical considerations are driving the
phenomenon of MOOCs. The objective of this study is to provide insights into recent developments of
MOOCs and how they can be incorporated into high school curriculum. While it’s too soon to say if
MOOCs represent a substitution to traditional courses, they certainly bring a transformative change to
our actual education in general and to the way our academic institutions are working. For high school
for example MOOCs could be used as blended-learning approach particularly in math and science. In
higher education there is a lot of excitement about MOOCs and universities are still working hard on
how to use them and what impact they could have on the value of a degree. A survey has been conducted
to understand how students perceive learning outside the classroom through social media, online
courses, school website, and private tutoring. 310 students have been surveyed during their end of the
year exams at Global International School, an international school licensed by the Saudi Arabian

⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: tbrahimi@effatuniversity.edu.sa (T. Brahimi), ak94@yahoo.
com, asarirete@effatuniversity.edu.sa (A. Sarirete).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.013
0747-5632/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Brahimi, T., & Sarirete, A. Learning outside the classroom through MOOCs. Computers in Human Behavior (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.013
2 T. Brahimi, A. Sarirete / Computers in Human Behavior xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Ministry of Education and open to all expatriates in the Jeddah community, and accredited by the
International Accreditation body ‘‘Advanced’’ (http://www.advanc-ed.org/). On the question ‘‘Learning
outside the Classroom has a Positive Impact on my Education’’ 44.52% said they strongly agree with the
statement and 51.61% said they agree while 2.58% neither agree nor disagree.
1. Introduction
Educational systems around the world are under continuous
and increasing pressure to use the new information and communi-
cation technologies to teach students the knowledge and skills
they need in the 21st century as stated in the UNESCO report
(Resta, 2003). In a recent survey released January 15th, 2014 by
the Sloan (Allen & Seaman, 2014) ‘‘Grade Change: Tracking Online
Education in the United States’’ the number of academic officers con-
sidering online education as a critical component to their long-
term strategy has increased from 50% in 2002 to about 70% in
2012 but dropped to 65% in 2013 due to institutions without
online offering as stated in the report. Recent announcements from
top Universities to turn to new forms of educational delivery called
‘‘MOOCs’’ (Massive Open Online Courses) have not only captured
the interest of academics and students at higher education but also
the interest of students and teachers at high schools. In the tradi-
tional transfer learning model the teacher serves as the repository
and transmitter of knowledge however, with MOOCs the teaching
method is inverted by using the flipped classroom model where
the learner interacts with other students, peers, and has flexible
access to all information and resources around him before coming
to classroom. The learning cycle is an ongoing process that is
designed to improve the quality of learners as well as the collab-
oration among learners. As Bill Gates said at the Association of
Community College Trustees’ leadership meeting in Seattle
(www.gatesfoundation.org) ‘‘the benefits of using large-scale
online education programs with individualized instruction could
ultimately improve student learning outcomes’’. Education is prac-
ticed not only inside the classroom but outside the classroom, in
the community as whole where learners can develop collaborative
learning through communities of interest, adapt courses according
to their needs, and become partners in knowledge generation and
sharing (Allen & Seaman, 2014; Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007;
Sarirete, 2009; Wenger, 1998).
The objective of this study is to provide insights into recent
developments of MOOCs and what are the possibilities to incorpo-
rate it into high school curriculum.
2. Learning outside the classroom
Traditional learning inside a classroom is well-known; however,
learning outside the classroom has always been a challenge to stu-
dents and learners alike; especially with the fast growing technol-
ogy, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and so on. Local
authority and schools should take into account the value of learn-
ing outside the classroom and support it by including it in their
programs. National and International accreditation bodies also
must ensure that such learning process is clearly indicated in the
institutional curriculum.
In a survey conducted to understand how students perceive
learning outside the classroom through social media, online
courses, school website, and private tutoring, we surveyed 310 stu-
dents during their end of the year exams at Global International
School (GIS, http://www.gis.sch.sa/), an international school
licensed by the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education and open to
all expatriates in the Jeddah community, Saudi Arabia. It is also
Please cite this article in press as: Brahimi, T., & Sarirete, A. Learning outside the classroom through MOOCs. Computers in Human Behavior (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.013
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
accredited by the Commission on International and Trans-
Regional Accreditation ‘‘CITA’’ as well as by ‘‘Advanced’’ (http://
www.advanc-ed.org/). Out of the 310 students surveyed,
Fig. 1 and 68% of respondents indicated that YouTube was the most
valuable social media tool; WhatsApp was identified as the second
most valuable social media tool (63%); then come Twitter (40%)
and Ask.fm (35%). Finally 50% said they used the school website.
Respondents are using social networking sites primarily to con-
nect with classmates and stay current with class news regarding
exams and homework. The survey also found that more than 77%
use private tutoring in Mathematics and English as shown in
Fig. 2. The reason behind that is that most universities in the middle
east region require high scores in Mathematics and English, in addi-
tion the international exams also has similar requirements, for
example in the SAT (https://sat.collegeboard.org) two-third of the
total score is for English (1600 points) and the remaining score,
one-third, is for Mathematics (800 points). It’s interesting to note
that the survey was done at a time where the students were com-
pleting their final exams and at this time of the year (May and
June) students are either doing their end of year exam or are prepar-
ing for their IGCSE (www.cie.org.uk) or SAT exams, hence they are
active in having private tutoring or learning outside the classroom.
On the question ‘‘Learning outside the Classroom has a Positive
Impact on my Education’’ 44.52% said they strongly agree with the
statement and 51.6% said they agree while 2.6% neither agree nor
disagree as shown in Fig. 3.
Based on the above findings, we believe that local community
and parents should reinforce the message to students, schools,
and educators about the value of learning outside the classroom
and support it by forcing the schools to incorporate it into their
curriculum and programs. Accreditation bodies such as Advanced
(http://www.advanc-ed.org/) for High School or ABETS (http://
www.abet.org/) for University and Engineering programs should
also take this into account and includes it in their external review
visit. Institutions seeking to gain or retain accreditation must meet
some Standards regarding learning outside the classroom before
being accredited. With all the technology around us, we believe
that students should use new means of learning outside the class-
room such as MOOCs where students would be able to combine
free online learning with private tutoring services which may at
least reduce the amount of money spent for private tutoring.
Fig. 1. Students use of social media at GIS School (Jeddah, KSA).
 T. Brahimi, A. Sarirete / Computers in Human Behavior xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
Fig. 2. Courses used in private tutoring at GIS School (Jeddah, KSA).
Indeed, in the last ten years we witnessed more families in Saudi
Arabia and UAE seeking for private tutors (http://www.tutors-in-
ternational.com/) in particular for students preparing IGCSE and
SAT exams. Today MOOCs bring a transformative change to our
actual education in general and to the way our academic institu-
tions are currently working.
3. The MOOCs phenomenon
In the new connected society of the 21st century education is
still facing great challenges from new models of education such
as MOOCs, considered as a controversial and disruptive technology
(Armstrong, 2012; Bate, 2012; Conole, 2013). Educators may agree
or disagree with MOOCs replacing traditional courses for a number
of reasons (Brahimi & Sarirete, 2014). Some say they are the future
of higher education while others see them as downfall of it as
reported by Nathan Heller’s in The New Yorker (Hellers, 2013).
MOOCs are massive open online courses which have global reach,
unlimited participation, and open access over the internet via a
combination of social networking and video podcasts. MOOCs
attracted a huge variety of students of different ages, nationalities,
backgrounds, abilities, interests, etc. It’s all based on connection
where you have the ability to learn, interact, and collaborate not
only locally and globally but also universally from anywhere and
at any time. You choose your own courses from the best instructors
at the best universities in the world. In 2010, Dave Cormier
(Cormier, 2010) said in a YouTube video titled ‘‘What is a
MOOC?’’ ‘‘A MOOC is participatory. It is a way to connect and collabo-
rate while developing digital skills. MOOCs are, maybe most impor-
tantly, an event around which people who care about a topic can
get together and work and talk about it in a structured way’’. In the
last few months the number of students enrolled in courses via
MOOCs has increased from few thousands to millions not only in
North America but also in South America, Europe, Australia, Asia,
Fig. 3. Students attitude towards learning outside the classroom.
Please cite this article in press as: Brahimi, T., & Sarirete, A. Learning outside the classroom through MOOCs. Computers in Human Behavior (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.013
3
and Africa (Balch, 2013; Breslow et al., 2013) as well as in the
Arab world (ArabNet, 2013).
The history of MOOCS is relatively new, but this phenomenon
quickly spread all over the world and is being implemented in
many countries. The first MOOC emerged from the open
educational resources (OER) and was first used by Dave Cormier
and Bryan Alexander (Willey, 2013). Just as soon as the course
was opened the total number of registered students reached more
than 2300. MOOCs have since attracted the elite universities in the
US starting with Stanford University who offered, in October 2011,
a course in Artificial Intelligence ‘‘Introduction to Artificial
Intelligence’’ designed to resemble real classroom experiences and
offer high-quality classes for everyone. The course attracted more
than 160,000 students (Carr, 2012). The success of this massive
online course pushed the two Artificial Intelligence instructors,
professors Thrun and Norvig, to build a new MOOC business model
by launching in January 2012 a startup company Udacity (udacity.-
com). In April 2012 of the same year, two of Thrun’s colleagues at
Stanford’s computer science department, Daphne Koller and
Andrew Ng, started similar Educational startup called Coursera
(coursera.org). This time partners were not only Stanford
University but Princeton, Penn, and the University of Michigan.
While MOOCs were being developed around Stanford University
and the Silicon Valley in California, MIT and Harvard in
Massachusetts joined forces and launched online edX (edX.org)
massive courses in May 2012. In recent months US MOOC provi-
ders were being faced with international competition from
Europe, Japan, and China. Indeed, in Europe many universities are
engaging in massive open education (EMOOC, 2014), the aim is to
gather all European actors from policy makers to practitioners to
researchers to discuss MOOCs trend in Europe, accreditation, plat-
form, and research initiatives. In Germany, in October 2013, a
Berlin-based MOOC startup provider launched ‘‘iversity’’ (iversi-
ty.org) with over than 115,000 students registered in one day only.
Now iversity provider is enrolling more than 300,000 students for a
total of 25 courses. Iversity CEO Marcus Riecke said that he is
planning to have more than 100 MOOCs and more than one million
students by the end of 2014 (techcrunch.com/2013/10/14/iversity-
initial-students/). In France, the Ministry of Higher Education and
Research also launched in October 2013 a new provider ‘‘FUN –
France Université Numérique’’ (france-universite-numerique.fr)
with 38 free courses. The number of registered students reached
more than 100,000. The MOOC provider in UK FutureLearn (future-
learn.com) web site went live in September 2013 with the first
course in October 2013 (http://emoocs2014.eu/speaker/simon-nel-
son). As of May 2014, FutureLearn has more than 45 courses. In
Asia, in October 2013 China’s Peking and Tsinghua universities
launched their first MOOCs on the Coursera platform ‘‘open.163.
com’’. In Japan; in February 2013 the University of Tokyo decided
to start MOOCs under Coursera while Kyoto University joined
edX (http://www.cd.aaou2013.com/pdf/194.pdf). In April 2013,
the Australian National UniversitylaunchedOpen2Study
(Open2Study.com) developed by Open Universities Australia and
now includes 49 courses. Compared to edX and Coursera,
Open2Study focuses more on career skills. In the Arab world a
Riyadh-based company in Saudi Arabia launched in September
2013 a fully native, fully Arabic massive open online course
Rwaq (or gallery, rwaq.org) with 34 courses. The Rwaq co-founder,
Mr. Al-Farhan said they have ‘‘tens of thousands’’ of users and
are currently in talks with five universities interested in
licensing the Rwaq platform to launch their own online education
initiatives. It is also believed, as reported by Nina Curley (http://
www.wamda.com/2013/12/saudi-arabia-rwaq-online-courseware-
mooc-middle-east), that ‘‘Rwaq is on its way to becoming a regional
hub for e-learning in the Middle East’’. In May 2014, the Queen Rania
Foundation for Education and Development (QRF) launched Edraak
4 T. Brahimi, A. Sarirete / Computers in Human Behavior xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

(edraak.org) with 10 courses. Powered by the Open edX platform,

Edraak plan to deliver high quality online education from the best
Arab instructors, regional academic institutions as well as Arabic-
translated courses from prestigious universities like Harvard and
MIT. Other similar projects in late 2013 have been launched in
Lebanon (MenaVersity), and in Egypt (SkillAcademy). The major
MOOCs providers are displayed in Table 1.

4. Popular MOOCs

To show the most popular courses in MOOCs, we shall note that

we compiled the list of the courses by looking at each MOOC pro-
vider website and counting the total number of courses. Fig. 4
shows the breakdown of courses by most active providers.
The percentage shown in Fig. 4 displays the value calculated
based on the total number of courses of all providers shown, that Fig. 4. Percentage of MOOCs by provider.
is 995 courses (as of May 2014). It is interesting to see the positive
trend of Arabic MOOCs Rwaq with 34 free courses, a number
greater than the one offered by Iversity (Germany) and similar to
FUN (France). Coursera (US) has the largest and greatest range of
courses covering many subjects and areas. The highest number of
courses available is related to Computer science and Humanities.
These courses overshadow the majority of science and engineering
courses.
At the time of writing this paper (May 2014) we counted 664
Coursera courses all categories included from 109 partners
(https://www.coursera.org/). This is a huge number compared to
edX (US) with 182 courses available or to FUN (France) with 38
courses. Coursera (US) has the largest and greatest range of courses
covering many subjects and areas (coursera.org). The highest num-
ber of courses available is related to Computer science and
Humanities. These courses overshadow the majority of science
and engineering courses. The percentage of some courses com-
pared to the total number of courses available at Coursera is shown
in Fig. 5.

5. MOOCs and completion rates

One of the fundamental critiques of MOOCs from faculty mem-
bers is their low completion rate; usually a completion rate of less
than 10% as reported by Jordan (2013). One example of this drop-
out is the case of the Bioelectricity MOOC by Duke University. The
number of students registered was 12,725 students (Yang, Sinha,
Adamson, & Penstein, 2013) but only 7761 students watched a
video and only 3658 of them took at least one quiz while 313
Fig. 5. Distribution of courses offered by Coursera.
out of 346 passed the course with a certificate, a dropout rate of
about 97% (Fig. 6). Other published data on some courses have also
shown similar trends (Universities UK, 2013). Enrolment in a
course at the University of Michigan ‘‘Internet History, Technology,
and Security’’ started with 46,000 students, from that number

Table 1
Most popular MOOCs providers.

Major providers Description

Udacity (USA) https://www.udacity.com/
Coursera (USA) https://www.coursera.
org/
edX (USA) http://edx.org/
Open2Study https://www.
open2study.com
FutureLearn (UK) http://futurelearn.com/
Rwaq (KSA) http://www.rwaq.org/
Iversity (Germany) http://www.iversity.
org/
FUN (France) http://www.france-
universite-numerique.fr/
Edraak (Jordan) https://www.edraak.org/
An outgrowth of a Stanford University experiment founded by Sebastian Thrun, David Stavens, and Mike Sokolsky.
Launched in January 2012
A for-profit educational technology company founded by two former Stanford University computer science professors
Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller. Launched in April 2012
A Not-for-profit enterprise with MIT and Harvard universities as founding partners. Also conducts research learning based
on how users use its platform. Launched in May 2012
Open2Study developed by Open Universities Australia. Launched in April 2013
A private company owned by the Open University. The first UK-led multi-institutional platform. Launched in September
2013
A Riyadh-based company in Saudi Arabia launched in September 2013 a fully native, fully Arabic massive open online
course
A company with a diverse interdisciplinary team from Berlin offering MOOC and collaboration network for academia.
Launched in October 2013
France Université Numérique (FUN) provides a wide audience, notably in French-speaking countries, with numerous free
classes in every discipline. Launched in October 2013
An initiative of the Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development (QRF). Powered by the Open edX platform.
Launched in May 2014

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dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.013
 T. Brahimi, A. Sarirete / Computers in Human Behavior xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 5

educationnews.org) said ‘‘The most important thing that helps

Fig. 6. Students’ completion rate in bioelectricity MOOC at Duke University.
14,000 only watched the first lecture, 5000 students completed the
final exam, and just less than 5000 received a completion certifi-
cate which represents a completion rate of about 10%. According
to Coursera most students who register for a MOOC intend to
explore the topic only but not to complete the course. Student
who paid $50 for an option that prevent cheating had a completion
rate of 70 percent as reported by Kolowich (2013).
In Australia (Dodd, 2013), the first MOOCs offered by Open
University recorded a completion rate of more than 25%, that is
better than those of other MOOCs providers. Edinburgh
University’s UK Coursera-based MOOCs confirms the dropout trend
we saw elsewhere. In a recent conference in Lausanne, Switzerland
about MOOCs (February 10–12, EMOOCS, 2014) some authors
claimed that MOOCs dropout could be reduced if a correlation is
undertaken not between students who registered and those who
completed the course but between those who actually watched
the first course video and those who finished the course. If we
apply this rule to Bioelectricity MOOC by Duke University the com-
pletion rate becomes slightly better, going from 3% to 4.4%. For
‘‘Internet History, Technology, and Security’’ MOOC at the
University of Michigan, completion rate is much better when tak-
ing into account students who actually watched the first course
video versus those completed the course, completion rate
increases from 10% to 30%. Other authors argue that the low com-
pletion rates can also be found in other types of learning because
there is no penalty for exit or entry to MOOCs. Daphne Koller,
Founder of Coursera (Kolowich, 2012) said ‘‘the students who drop
out early do not add substantially to the cost of delivering the course.
The most expensive students are the ones who stick around long
enough to take the final, and those are the ones most likely to pay
for a certificate. Craig, the University ventures partner has another
idea about students who dropped from the MOOCs, he suggested
to have these students back but this time with traditional online
programs instead of MOOCs (Kolowich, 2012). Many faculty mem-
bers consider the gap between course learning outcomes (CLO) and
achievements is of a major issue in MOOCs. We are still in the early
stage of MOOCs and so far we do not know what impact MOOCs
will have on pedagogy or the learning model. In the 2013 survey
by The Inside Higher Ed survey and Gallup (Jaschik & Lederman,
2013) about 74% of faculty member strongly disagree that the
low completion rates of less than 10% for MOOCs are acceptable.
6. MOOCs and education communities
One of the biggest concerns of education community is the lim-
ited interaction between teachers and students. Educators
expressed concerns about MOOCs devaluing faculty-student inter-
action. Shanna Smith Jaggars, assistant director of Columbia
University’s Community College Research Center (www.
students succeed in an online course is interpersonal interaction and
support’’. In a white paper Voss (2013) talked about the effect of
human ware on technology. Many surveys have been conducted
to understand how faculty members perceive online learning and
new models of teaching and learning. Most of the surveys were
conducted by Universities and research centers in US, UK, and
Australia. Different types of questions have been asked such as
the impact of MOOCs on higher education, MOOCs and Face to
Face (F2F) delivery, MOOCs sustainability, MOOCs and Business
models, MOOCs and completion rate, MOOCs and accreditation,
etc. Faculty members are skeptical about MOOCs and the quality
of education it provides, in 2013, in conjunction with researchers
from Gallup, the Inside Higher Ed surveyed more than 2200 profes-
sors on Faculty Attitudes on Technology (Jaschik & Lederman,
2013). 85% of those surveyed believe that the quality of courses
in F2F is better than those in online courses but for professors
who had taught online courses the survey found that 50% believe
online courses are at least equivalent to F2F courses. In early
2013 the University of Wisconsin Lacrosse created an open online
course ‘‘College Readiness’’ to help pre-college students prepare for
the challenge of a college-level math course and ‘‘assess their cur-
rent readiness to pursue math courses at the post-secondary level.
This course is aligned to mathematics portions the ACT, SAT, and
other college gateway examinations. Similar effort is in place in
other universities and colleges like Boward College’s Skills
Academy, a grant-funded pilot offering college readiness courses
in reading, writing and math. Other MOOCs have been created by
Cambridge and now give participants an excellent opportunity to
investigate how computers work, how they are used, and to
develop computer programming and problem-solving skills. The
University of Miami’s Global Academy, a virtual high school, devel-
oped its first MOOC specifically for high school students to prepare
them to take the SAT subject test in biology. Reynoldsburg (Ohio)
City Schools’ combines MOOCs with live classroom instruction
for high school. Many other Universities and high schools are creat-
ing similar MOOCs for students, (www.topfreeclasses.com/cat-
egory/789/College-Preparation) such as ACT math, ACT science,
College Foundations: Reading, Writing, and Math, Math Refresher
with College Success Tips, SAT Writing, SAT Critical Reading,
Applying to U.S. Universities, etc. These courses actually serve as
way for Universities to reduce dropout rate and help students bet-
ter prepare for the challenges of college coursework. Other inter-
esting initiatives can be found at www.moocs.co/K-12_MOOCs.
html an online Global Directory of MOOCs providers by MOOCs
University (http://MOOCs.University/).
7. Conclusion
‘‘MOOCs’’ have captured the interest of academics and the pub-
lic but at the same time led to speculation about the future of
Higher Education. The present study provides insights into recent
developments of MOOCs and how faculty members and students
interact with it. For the Arab world MOOCs has the potential to
be part of positive influence to traditional higher education system.
While it’s too soon to say if MOOCs represent a substitution to tra-
ditional courses, they certainly bring a transformative change to
our actual education in general and to the way our academic insti-
tutions are working. MOOCs can be a big plus to K12 students’ cur-
riculum. These massive courses serve as way to reduce dropout
rate and help students better prepare for their college coursework.
The main challenge today with MOOCs is to identify what is the
best model and the best practice in using this technology and
how we can optimize it for our students. As school leaders and
educators we need to stay connected, foster a rich dialogue about

Please cite this article in press as: Brahimi, T., & Sarirete, A. Learning outside the classroom through MOOCs. Computers in Human Behavior (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.03.013
6 T. Brahimi, A. Sarirete / Computers in Human Behavior xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
MOOCs, and begin to re-think and re-shape our curriculum and
instructional strategies to prepare for MOOCs in K-12 and help
our students to prepare for the challenges of the 21st century
and beyond.
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