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There is no single definition for Massive Open Online Courses, MOOCs nor the variations SPOCs, DOCCs, and BOOCs. There are many variations of MOOCs, e.g. C-MOOCs and X-MOOCs (Siemens, 2012). Some joint characteristics are autonomy, diversity, openness and interactivity. Participants join a MOOC because of their own interest and needs – for varying reasons.

The MOOC concept was established in Canada 2008 by Stephen Downes and George Siemens at the University of Manitoba, when they started the online course “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge”. To their surprise got more than 2200 participants (Downes, 2011). Another example is the course “Artificial intelligence” which Stanford University started in 2011 with 160 000 participants. A lot of universities have followed and regard MOOCs as an important way to promote themselves, e.g. prestigious universities as Harvard, Open University, MIT and Stanford.

Furthermore, several organizations are occupied with the possibilities of MOOCs and in a broader perspective blended learning, web-based learning, and e-learning. The European commission launches a comprehensive initiative regarding open education, which is intended to promote digital competence, the use of open learning resources and education, and access to digital resources both in schools and at universities (Opening up Education, 2013).

MOOCs provide opportunities for all teachers, not only “big name professors”, to make themselves a name, to join an academic “star culture” (Billsberry, 2013). This possibility to perform internationally in front of thousands of students has potential to increase teachers’ interest for working with online courses (Billsberry, 2013). Thus, MOOCs have put the discussion of e-learning into focus and have, and will, force also the most traditional universities to review the way they use technology and how their teachers work with online learning in general. It is expected that this will influence how teachers will be encouraged by their university management to integrate technology in teaching and learning.

From the authors’ point of view, MOOCs and the above mentioned concepts are not competing with regular courses; instead they are showing the benefits of education. For today’ students, these forms of education are not alternatives to traditional university studies and are unlikely to be so for several years. We believe that most universities will continue with their traditional courses for many years but alternatives will slowly become more appealing.We conclude that there is a lot happening in education today and MOOCs are just one of many important new elements being explored to create good learning arenas to support student learning. Probably the MOOC concept will fade into something else. Today, already new concepts are discussed as e.g. SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses), DOCCs (Distributed Online Collaborative Course), and BOOCs (Big Open Online Course). According to Billsberry (2013), MOOCs need to be explored: “the initial hype and hyperbole about MOOCs as a way of setting the scene for the future” needs to be explored (p. 739).

At the conference, we will present and discuss these forms of education and how they will affect teaching and learning in higher education, from now on and in the future.