AHRD! Take the opportunity and pioneer vocational MOOCs

Abstract

In this perspective, we advocate that the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) can play a significant role in pioneering and promoting vocational Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). To do so, we introduce Coursera, an online educational portal that provides a variety of MOOCs for free and serves adult learners, as an example. In addition, we discuss lessons AHRD can learn from Coursera’s experience. We also explore the benefits of leading vocational MOOCs for the academy. This paper has implications for the Human Resource Development scholarly and practitioner communities.

Keywords:

• training
• learning
• workplace
• online education
• MOOC