International Entrepreneurship Review (Sep 2018)
MOOCs and entrepreneurship education-contributions, opportunities and gaps
Abstract
The goal of this study is to provide a systemic review and evaluation of the existing MOOCs and Micro-credentials in the area of entrepreneurship, adding to the current state of research on online entrepreneurship education. The study is based on desk research consisting of literature review as well as comparative analysis and systemic review of entrepreneurship MOOC and Micro-credentials. Two MOOC aggregators Class Central and MOOC List as well as five MOOC platforms, Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, Udacity and Kadenze, have been used to identify the existing courses. The main comparison criteria in both analyses have been: course focus, format, length, fees and language. Key research findings indicate that the majority of the current MOOCs and Micro-credentials devoted to entrepreneurship focus on start-ups and universal entrepreneurial skills. The area of firm-level entrepreneurship remains most unaddressed by MOOCs. Two MOOC platforms Coursera and edX lead at this early development stage of Micro-credentials. The Micro-credential offer is growing rapidly, responding to the learner preferences of modularity, stackability and competence based education. This study aims to contribute to the analysis of new developments within online entrepreneurship education. The findings present valuable practical implications, especially relevant for MOOC providers and creators for evaluating their current entrepreneurship education offer, in order to identify possible gaps and opportunities for future online courses, credentials and degrees.
