Integrating MOOCs in Embedded Systems Blended Courses

Abstract

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) paradigm has been growing in less than a decade from a life-long learning approach to a state-of-the-art method of offering a large plethora of courses and even specializations. Not only higher education, but also private companies started to manifest a growing interest into all the possibilities this technology is offering. This phenomenon received extra-consideration when renowned universities like Stanford, Harvard, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rice University started offering such courses. Embedded Systems field, on the other side, is one domain that continuously needs attention from educators. The concepts should be presented in a very friendly and approachable way, while in the same time preserving a practical, applicative vision. This paper presents a modality of integrating MOOCs into embedded systems higher education. The obtained results show that students prefer such a mix to the classical classroom methods of teaching.