Awareness And Participation in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) Among Lecturers of Umar Ibn Ibrahim El-Kanemi College of Education, Science and Technology, P.M.B. 16, Bama, Borno State

The study was conducted to investigate level of awareness and participation in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) among Lecturers of Umar Ibn Ibrahim El- Kanemi College of Education, Science and Technology Bama Borno State. The population consisted of all the academic staff of the college. The study adopted a survey study design in which quantitative data were collected from the respondents to answer the research questions using a questionnaire as a research instrument. Simple random sampling techniques was employed in drawing the sample. Four research questions and four hypothesis guided the work. Mean and standard deviation were employed to answer the research questions. The hypotheses were tested using Chi-square. The ndings of the study revealed that 53.1% of the lecturers were aware of MOOCs, but only 28.6% had participated in at least one MOOCs in the past year. The most popular MOOC platforms among the lecturers were SWAYAM, NPTEL, Coursera, and Future learn. The main reasons for participation in MOOCs were professional development, and academic advancement. The main reasons for non-participation were lack of awareness of MOOCs, low Internet connectivity, non-acceptance of MOOCs as a professional training. All the hypotheses were accepted to show no signicant difference in all the mean ratings due to gender. On the basis of the findings and discussion, four recommendations were made including: the college administration to promote and support the use of MOOCs as a complementary source of learning and teaching for the lecturers and students, providing incentives, recognition, and accreditation of for completing MOOCs, facilitate access to Internet, also to encourage lecturers to explore and enrol in MOOCs that are relevant to their discipline and interests in order to enhance their knowledge, skills and competences, exposing them to different perspectives and approaches, motivating lecturers to engage actively and collaboratively with other learners and instructors in MOOCs so as to foster social learning, networking and feedback, as well to improve their retention and completion rates.