• A new category of online courses known as "Massive Open Online Courses" (MOOCs) emerged as the world recovered from its economic downturn in 2011.
• It is propelled by reputable educational institutions.
• Despite the fact that MOOCs have existed since 2008, their institutional roots can be found in three free online courses Stanford University provided in 2011.

Udacity, Coursera, and edX

• Thrun launched his online education company, "Udacity," as a for-profit business in late 2011.
• Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller''s business, "Coursera," which was also registered as a "for-profit" company, followed suit a year later.
• MIT and Harvard collaborated to found ''edX'' in May 2012 as a non-profit MOOCS company.
• The innovative founder of edX is widely credited with opening-sourcing and globalising the business''s "open edX tech stack."
• All three groups were successful in developing MOOCS on a worldwide scale with the assistance of the best universities and institutions on the planet.

MOOCs platforms in India

• The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and the IIT Bangalore were among the first mover in India.
• Both organisations use the edX platform to provide a range of MOOCS courses.
• Nearly 35 MOOCs Learning Management Systems (LMS) were in use as of 2021, with locations in North America, Asia, and Europe.
• ''Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds'' (SWAYAM) is one of the largest learning e-portals in the world.
• It was launched in 2017 by the Ministry of Education, Government of India.
• It is included on the list of significant LMS platforms from the developing world.
• There were 220 million MOOCS students worldwide (excluding China) in 2021, according to "Class Central."
• 97 million students were enrolled in Coursera.
• 42 million and 22 million students were enrolled in edX and SWAYAM in India.

Challenges Faced by MOOCs Platforms

• Although MOOCS platforms appear to have a large number of students enrolled, their financial situation is fragile.
• A MOOCS platform''s operating costs are high because of the LMS tech stack''s maintenance costs and high marketing costs.
• Both are incurred to increase the learner base.
• The practice of providing introductory courses for free (or at low costs) made these platforms'' financial struggles worse.
• Although most MOOCS platforms rely on degree-granting courses to generate income, these courses have a low enrollment rate.

Role of Generative AI in MOOCs Platforms

• These factors may help to explain why regenerative AI is being used by Coursera, edX, and Khan Academy.
• With the aid of the Chat GPT plug-in from edX, prospective students can easily find platforms and programmes that meet their needs.
• While edX''s ''edX Xpert'' and Coursera''s ''AI Coursera Coach'' serve as virtual assistants that answer questions, give feedback on assignments, produce quick summaries of dense content, and quickly produce exam results.
• Khan Academy''s chat box ''Khanmigo'' challenges students with thought-provoking questions.
• Dropout rates will inevitably decline as learning becomes more interesting and engaging,
• It will result in more students advancing to degree-granting programmes.

In India

• SWAYAM from India has not yet made clear how it will handle AI.
• However, it is in for some interesting times.
• When there are 900 million active Internet users in India by 2025. the SWAYAM user base will have significantly increased.
• Institutes connected to the platform will need to use AI-based learning and teaching services due to the rapid scale up.
• SWAYAM is publicly funded and it is based on the principles of inclusivity and cross-disciplinary learning.
• SWAYAM courses will move towards cross-disciplinary course offerings that make use of unstructured data in the coming years.
• Thus, SWAYAM is ideally positioned to derive benefits from the evolving semantic web.

Only time will tell if regenerative AI tools will actually support the financial success of online education platforms. What is certain at this time is that major international online education brands will not hesitate to experiment with regenerative AI tools.