Museum Educational Online Products: Creation Prerequisites and Development Prospects

This article examines online educational products developed by museums both independently and in cooperation with educational institutions. The analysis revealed a pool of museum online products, including mass open online courses (MOOCs), specialized professional online courses (SPOCs), educational games, mobile apps, and podcasts. The authors identify advantages and features of each type of the museum online products (MOPs) and determine the prospects for their inclusion in the educational process.

The study aims to reveal the activity of different kinds of museums and museum communities in the development and implementation of educational online products both in their own educational activities, carried out by an increasing number of museums, and in the process of formal and non-formal education in cooperation with universities, schools, and further education institutions that implement it. The study discovered that museums develop both MOOCs that are traditional for the system of higher professional education, and educational online products, such as educational games, podcasts, and mobile applications with educational content, that are not widely used at present, but are promising for formal and, especially, non-formal education. An important result of the study was the conclusion about the common practice of cooperation between museums and universities in the joint development of online products, as well as about the feasibility of deploying such work with institutions of secondary general and vocational education.

The authors’ analysis of the system of museum educational online products allowed us to conclude that new players — museums — have appeared in the online education market in the role of organizations that create and use various online resources in their activities, including those that can be used in the field of education.

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