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Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have taken a life of their own, proving the need for adoption and continued use of such information systems by academic employees. The spring semester for 2020 began with empty classrooms amidst the new Coronavirus outbreak in China. Universities used online course platforms for more than ten million students to attend school from home (CGTN, 2020). More recently, universities have started teaching live classes online throughout China on a mass scale (CGTN, 2020), including 200 million domestic and international students (Jin et al., 2021).
MOOCs surfaced as a phenomenal methodology for making education more accessible to a broader geographical range with global outreach prospects for educational institutions. It has gained momentum and popularity since 2012 in the USA, United Kingdom, and Europe. The year 2012 was termed the year of the MOOCs by the New York Times (Pappano, 2012), while Coursera, Udacity (for-profit), and edX (non-profit) emerged as three of the biggest names in MOOCs. Although information systems (IS) for educational institutions is a relatively new concept in the backdrop of online learning, it is being studied extensively (Al-Emran et al., 2016; Briz-Ponce et al., 2017; Kim & Rha, 2018). Its most significant advantage is learner mobility and quicker access to information; freedom from spatial and temporal dependence, leading to faster response time and problem-solving through communication between tutors and learners alike.
With a barrage of technological advancements, existing research is saturated with studies on initial adoption, while less attention is paid to post-adoption continuance intention (Bhattacherjee, 2001). Initial acceptance of technology and continued use are two distinct concepts. Bhattacherjee (2001) defines IS continuance as users' decision to continue using technology over the long run, against the initial acceptance based on the users' decision to start using technology. MOOCs have been here for several years now. The employees' decision to continue using this technology to innovate and create shall determine its real input into the educational infrastructure. Thus, determinants of initial acceptance are not the ultimate aim for researchers (Alraimi et al., 2015); instead, the continued use should be studied further for its enablers and inhibitors, especially from employees' perspectives.