Modelling Online Course Services and Comparison of its Major Providers

Abstract

Online course has created many success stories since its inceptions. It has opened opportunities for learners, instructors, universities, companies, and other organizations to fulfill their needs in education and even creates new needs which previously are unthinkable possible. Online course providers have central roles in bridging and fulfilling the needs of these many parties. This paper modelled online course services based on identification of the needs for online course in a form of activity flow diagrams. The model also includes the context diagram of stakeholders involved and the entity relationship diagram. Primary service components of major online course providers and activities involved in each service are identified. Based on these service components, a comparison of services offered by major online course providers is given. The needs of services that are least or not yet satisfied from online course providers are also identified to show that there are still opportunities to enhance the current services.