The MOOC is dead—long live MOOC 2.0!

The MOOC is dead—long live MOOC 2.0. The veracity of this claim depends to a great deal on who is making it. Or is the claim an example of the false “appeal to authority” argument denounced by logicians as crooked thinking? Or even an age-old “appeal to novelty” argument whereby new terms are deemed to be better than old ones without proof? The answer depends on how much evidence is produced for the idea that experts are always right (see Thouless, 1953). The evidence provided in the book edited by Ke Zhang, Curtis Bonk, Thomas Reeves, and Thomas Reynolds, MOOCs and Open Education in the Global South: Challenges, Successes, and Opportunities, which is reviewed in this issue reminds us that while the genesis of MOOCs lies in the affordances of connection and connectivity (Downes, 2012), MOOC ventures have since then followed various pathways and found favor in very different contexts. Most contemporary MOOC initiatives are in fact driven by aspirations very different from those envisaged by Siemens and Downes (see Siemens & Downes, 2008).