BILGEIS 100 MOOCs

BilgeIs 100 MOOCs project was initiated by the Middle East Technical University (METU), Turkey in 2015 with the aim of increasing the adaptability of employers and employees of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) via ICT services and tools. The project which was co-funded by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey, proposed to build up an online learning platform to be free, non-profit, accessible and user-friendly designed with advanced tools, which support the adaptability of employees and employers to new social and economic structures and to increase adaptability of employees and employers by investing more in human capital via ICT services and tools. The development phase of the MOOC project was completed on October 2017. Now, BilgeIs portal has 100 free, widely-open, easily reachable and innovative online courses at bilgeis.net. Considering the target group, the procedural learning approach is selected to design the courses where learners gather skills to complete daily tasks. Courses include high quality videos, interactions, auto-graded quizzes, as well as online-tutors are available to grade assignments. Also, the portal has a helpline providing help and guidance for learners synchronously via chat or asynchronously via emails during weekdays between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. The courses vary from social to technical skills and not only for employers or employees but also for everyone. Approximately, 50,000 lifelong learners from all over the world registered to the portal by January 2018. The learners who complete the courses successfully receive the METU President's signed certificate of achievement. Since the portal is open for access, approximately 22,000 certificates were awarded to the participants. This indicates that BilgeIs is becoming the most popular MOOC portal in Turkey with the support of METU, one of the distinguished and respectable universities of Turkey. The feedback from the learners show that they are highly satisfied with courses on BilgeIs and they ask for more Turkish MOOCs.