Abstract
With the evolution of information technology, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emerged in recent years and drawn attention globally. Various world-renowned universities have devoted to developing MOOCs from different platforms, including Coursera, edX and Udacity. Therefore, MOOCs have turned into a new evolution of education. Since there are significant differences between MOOCs and the previous digital learning modes, it is important to understand how MOOCs will bring the impacts on existing education environment and analyze the domestic and foreign business models. This study analyzes the business models and strategies from domestic and international cases by utilizing the business model theory of Johnson, Christensen and Kagermann (2008), which has elements including "Customer value proposition", "Key resources", "Key processes" and "Profit formula" with the scenario of MOOCs. Overall, this study provides specific recommendations and strategies for "Teaching developing staff of universities", "Educational services companies" and "Industry promoting institutions". Four research results has been found. First, the characteristics of MOOCs can be seprated into four categories, including "Platform of providing university education", " Platform of providing basic education", " Platform of providing skill training" and "Content providers". Under the intense competition of platforms, the necessity of developing platforms and differentiating the positioning strategies have become the key factor of breaking through the competitive markets. Second, MOOCs is the current trend of the future education, but MOOCs for university education are complementary rather than completely replaced. Third, the characteristics of openness and profitability of the online courses services provided are conflict with each other, so the development in the future will become highly challenging. Fourth, the progress of MOOCs must closely related to the evolution of technology. In the end, this study also provides specific recommendations and strategies for "Teaching developing staff of universities", "Educational services companies" and "Industry promoting institutions".