This special volume highlights current trends and issues related to the emergence and development of a new instructional form in higher education: Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs). In these online distance education courses, enrollment is usually open to anyone who wishes to take them. This volume provides institutional researchers with information about the possibilities and challenges for current and future research on MOOCs.

Topics covered include:

• defining and classifying MOOCs and who takes them,
• defining what persistence in them means or should mean,
• describing the legal issues MOOC providers and enrollees face, and
• identifying trends in the "big data" that MOOCs can provide.

This is the 167th volume of this Jossey-Bass quarterly report series. Timely and comprehensive, New Directions for Institutional Research provides planners and administrators in all types of academic institutions with guidelines in such areas as resource coordination, information analysis, program evaluation, and institutional management.