Open, interdisciplinary and collaborative educational innovation to train in energy sustainability through MOOC: perception of competency development

Abstract

This research on open, interdisciplinary and collaborative innovations called, “MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses),” analyzes the responses of 2799 participants about their perceptions of achieving their professional development goals and the competencies they sought to have acquired by the end of the course compared to their expectations at the time of course registration. The first four MOOCs analyzed covered topics in Energy Sustainability and were offered in 2017–2018 with a total of 17,210 participants. This research used a mixed methodology to analyze the responses of the participants of these online courses on energy sustainability (offered by the Binational Energy Laboratory Project: https://energialab.tec.mx/). The results show that the participants of the MOOC do perceive that they have developed professionally in training on energy issues and that they now have open to them new business opportunities and new professional relationships. In addition, through successful completion of the MOOC, they have strengthened their perseverance and self-study skills as well as the use of information and communication technologies. The students’ time management is perceived as one of the principle challenges in the learning processes of MOOCs.