The MOOC: Transposition of the university course, or adaptation to audience massification?
Based on the analysis of course landing pages of the French FUN platform, we suggest that MOOC designers, despite the fact they usually work in institutions of higher education, did not simply transpose existing courses. Most of them likely tried to adapt the content of their course to the massification of their audiences, notably by not imposing high prerequisites. Nevertheless, such adaptations may have been insufficient to address the needs and expectations of the adult learners that compose the main audience of these free online courses. This may have contributed to the appearance of epistemic barriers, partly responsible for MOOCs’ low completion rates.