The Impact of MOOCs on Human Resource Training and Development David M. Savino Ohio Northern University As many universities and companies are rushing to a new pedagogical phenomenon known as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) many questions remain as to their value, relevance and ability to deliver quality and useful educational and learning experiences. Since their recent introduction in academic circles, corporate leaders and Human Resource training professionals have become aware of MOOCs and have considered their applications to supplement and support corporate training. This paper is an attempt to discuss MOOCs in terms of what they are, how they are being used and their future in higher education and corporate training and learning. INTRODUCTION Whether we realize it or not, we are in a new era of education and learning that may be the next significant wave of how corporate training and development takes place. Since its entry into the learning environment several years ago, MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses have taken many prominent universities across the globe by storm. After Stanford and Professor Sebastian Thrun offered a course on Artificial Intelligence which enrolled about 160,000 students from 190 countries, The New York Times declared 2012 as “The Year of the MOOC” (Boyd and Kasraie, 2013). Besides Stanford, MOOCs have become popular at such universities as Princeton, MIT and Harvard prompting some to ask if MOOCs could also work in corporate training and development (Weiss, 2013). While MOOCs are in their early stage of development and implementation some believe that they will be more likely to be transformative rather than a fad and will be a major part of our learning environment into the future (Wood, 2013). Because of this they are prompting institutions of higher learning and business organizations to consider how best to facilitate a learning process that uses multiple methods and means to enhance student and employee learning and understanding. WHAT ARE MOOCS? The term MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) itself helps to define the idea of this learning concept and process. The term MOOC was first used by Professor Dave Cormier (2008) of the University of Prince Edward Island. MOOCs are massive open enrollment courses to students in remote locations that are free in terms of fees and participation and usually do not provide students any credit (Green, 2013). Even though several universities use and endorse MOOCs to some extent, the actual delivery of MOOCs comes through third-party providers such as Udacity, Coursera and edX (Weiss, 2013). While initial patronage is usually significant, the number of students who actually complete the courses is quite low. According to Friedman (2013), MOOCs have the potential to revolutionize higher education and Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice vol. 14(3) 2014 59