A practical study on the use of MOOC for geo-informatics education on the edX platform

The first MOOC course on geo-informatics, 'maps and the geospatial revolution' was provided as video materials by Penn State in July 2013, since then, the number of geo-informatics MOOC courses has increased significantly (Robinson et al., 2015). This study uses the edX geo-informatics course model as the origin of the experimental results to explore how to use MOOC design similar distance learning programs and improve upon them. Based on analysis of the course specifics, study population, drop-out rate, completion rate, and post-course questionnaire, quantitative data analysis was employed to answer the question of MOOC geo-informatics learning on edX; based on evaluating and examining particular data, an emphasis was placed on investigating the uses of MOOCs in the geo-informatics curriculum. The results show that MOOCs are an excellent method to support the dissemination of knowledge of geo-informatics (Lee and de Vries, 2019).