Teaching Political Science with a MOOC: Analyzing the Supply Side and the Demand Side

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) have been considered by some observers as a powerful media opportunity to improve learning. The Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) was the first Belgian university to deliver a political science MOOC, in French, entitled “Discovering political science”. This MOOC brings about new challenges for both supply and demand sides. The objective of this paper is threefold: 1- from the faculty members’ perspective to present the deep transformations in conceiving a political science introductory course for first year students. 2- to what extent introducing MOOC in the classroom affects students’ learning outcomes. 3- Finally, we also show how a MOOC can create opportunities to offer a wider variety of learning assignments, taking advantage of new media possibilities, of online peer-assessment and, in the classroom, by fostering active learning and work groups with instant feedback.