Between MOOCs and Service-oriented Education: If Students Had the Choice

Abstract

Enterprises demand universities not to limit education to theoretical knowledge, but instead, to prepare students for future challenges in the job. While demanding a focus on current technologies and practices appears reasonable, it contradicts academia’s general focus on sustainable knowledge. This “conflict-ofinterest” can be bridged through extra-curricular professional training. MOOCs are hyped as solution because they allow to simultaneously addressing masses of students. However, with the increasing number of learners, anonymity in education increases and first-level support decreases. Within the extracurricular online program erp4students we found that individual support is considered most relevant to successfully complete professional training.