Search

The adoption of various forms of distance education, particularly MOOCs (an acronym for Massive Open Online Courses), by universities worldwide has continuously gained momentum over the past decade. This is due not only to the importance of maintaining a parallel educational model alongside face-to-face courses in order to complete students' training, but also in response to the limits of academic infrastructure faced with an increasingly large mass of learners, typically in emerging countries. Universities view MOOCs as a remedy to this dilemma--one which promises reasonable development costs--especially taking into account the ubiquity of the internet and digital communication tools. In a country such as Morocco, whose university capacity has been stretched to 186%, the quest to dematerialize lectures can support universities in producing well-rounded professional profiles as well as improving institutional and academic services overall. In this paper, we present the feedback from Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdullah University concerning its first scientific MOOC, launched within the framework of the Maroc University Numérique (Morocco Digital University) or MUN project in collaboration with the France University Numérique (France Digital University) or FUN platform. The objectives of this paper are threefold: to assess the possibility of adopting further MOOCs in a Moroccan setting, to seek insight on the profiles of learners who have completed MOOCs and to draw lessons in order to improve future experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unexpected outbreak of the Corona virus (COVID-19) disrupted schools and universities around the world. Traditional classes were canceled, forcing schools and universities to switch to online learning. While developed countries have already adopted e-learning and online learning into their teaching practices, which made the transition relatively easy during the COVID-19 crisis, other developing countries continue to struggle with problems of electricity and information technology infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the challenges of online learning faced by students and teachers at the Faculty of Sciences Ain Chock, Hassan II University of Casablanca, Morocco. Thus, two anonymous structured Google Forms questionnaires were sent to participants via email. 498 responses were returned from students and 105 from teachers. We use descriptive statistics to better understand the distribution of study participants. The study reveals that the faculty during the lockdown ensured educational continuity and offered a reliable online learning in terms of digital and educational materials. However, technical problems such as the slow speed of the Internet connection, lack of knowledge about the use of information and communication technologies to teach and learn, low motivation of students, were significant challenges to students' and teachers' use of the digital tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Morocco is endowed with an intangible cultural heritage of great interest at the global level, to which Moroccan craftsmanship, for which it is widely known internationally, makes a significant contribution. In today's, the notion of heritage is continuously expanding, experiencing an almost unlimited extension. The intangible heritage increasingly occupies a prominent place in the planning of several bodies, whose aim is to raise awareness among nations of the need to protect their cultural diversity and to help them to develop projects for the safeguarding and preservation of this category of heritage. The majority of marketing research has not addressed the issue of the relationship between social media communication and the promotion of intangible cultural heritage in the sense that there is an information deficit in addressing this issue. The concept of social media communication represents for professionals a lever of great importance since it has become indispensable to a good marketing strategy. It constitutes, in the context of research, a real tool for the promotion of intangible cultural heritage and the enhancement of territories. The main objective of this article is to explore the concept of intangible cultural heritage given the great importance it represents and its relationship with social media communication in the Moroccan context, especially in the promotion, transmission and even the safeguarding of this wealth. The study used a multidisciplinary exploratory in the fields of media communication and territorial marketing. Thus, the study focused on the two concepts: intangible cultural heritage and communication through social media, while analysing the nature of their interrelation in general and more specifically the relationship between communication through social media and the promotion of Marrakech handicrafts as part of Morocco's intangible cultural heritage. The results of this empirical study of an exploratory nature, conducted among 14 experts operating in the Moroccan handicrafts sector, demonstrated the existence of a strong relationship between the use of social media communication and the promotion of Moroccan intangible cultural heritage and more specifically the intangible cultural heritage of the city of Marrakech through the development and enhancement of its handicraft products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]