A MOOC stands for massive open online course, which are typically free courses taken online by thousands of people. Anyone can sign up for a MOOC. One MOOC, offered by Stanford University in 2011, saw 160,000 students in 190 countries enroll. MOOCs are different than many online learning initiatives in that they have facilitators, course materials, participants, and specific start and end dates. Many universities and companies have started to offer MOOCs. You can find a list of them here, and a comparison chart of the major ones here. For more on MOOCS, watch this YouTube video.