Massive open online courses in health sciences from Latin American institutions: A need for improvement?

Abstract

Background: Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have undergone exponential growth over the past few years, offering free and worldwide access to high-quality education. We identified the characteristics of MOOCs in the health sciences offered by Latin American institutions (LAIs). Methods: We screened the eight leading MOOCs platforms to gather their list of offerings. The MOOCs were classified by region and subject. Then, we obtained the following information: Scopus H-index for each institution and course instructor, QS World University Ranking® 2015/16 of LAI, and official language of the course. Results: Our search identified 4170 MOOCs worldwide. From them, 205 MOOCs were offered by LAIs, and six MOOCs were health sciences related. Most of these courses (n = 115) were offered through Coursera. One health science MOOC was taught by three instructors, of which only one was registered in Scopus (H-index = 0). The remaining five health science MOOCs had solely one instructor (H-index = 4 [0–17]). The Latin American country with the highest participation was Brazil (n = 11). Conclusion: The contribution of LAI to MOOCs in the health sciences is low.