What You Need to Know about MOOCs
January 9, 2015
As you finalize your spring semester class schedule, you may be interested in enrolling in an online class. A massive open online course, or MOOC for short, is a new kind of class that some colleges and universities in the United States offer to students. The main difference in MOOCs and traditional classes are that in MOOCs:
- Students participate exclusively online, rather than in a classroom.
- The number of students enrolled is larger than other courses, some MOOCs teach hundreds or even thousands of students in one online class.
- The course requires very little personal interaction with the professor or instructor.
As an international student, you may enroll in MOOCs; However, regulations limit those courses from counting toward the full course of study requirement for an F or M student. Here is what you need to know:
- An F student may count only one online or distance education course toward a full course of study for each academic term if the school “does not require the student's physical attendance for classes, examination or other purposes integral to completion of the class” (8 CFR 214.2(f)(6)(i)(G)).
- An M student may not count any online or distance education courses toward a full course of study “if such classes do not require the student's physical attendance for classes, examination or other purposes integral to completion of the class” (8 CFR 214.2(m)(9)(v)).
- An English language program student may not count any online or distance education toward a full course of study.