Introducing Context-Awareness to MOOC Systems

Massive open online courses (MOOC) are shaping the future of education, moving studies outside class rooms, and changing the way people attain knowledge. It provide options to both universities and students. It enable students to have access to high quality courses offered by prestigious universities and top ranked professors for free or for affordable prices. At the same time, it enable universities to widen their scope and get access to worldwide prospect students. This brings in challenges to both universities and students. Universities need to address a full range of students, from different backgrounds, education levels, and specializations. Also, due to competition and variety of other MOOC service providers, universities need to establish effective techniques to persuade students to join and get engaged in its provided courses. On the other hand, students are faced with various options of universities and courses. This paper aims to tackle the challenges of 1) marketing courses for massive target audience, and 2) engaging students into the depth of the provided courses to attain effective, high quality education. We apply context-awareness techniques and principles to address these challenges. Adding context-awareness to MOOC systems helps regulate and restrict service provision to ensure effective wider reach (marketing) and better quality of education (student engagement)