NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY LECTURERS INTENTION TO ADOPT MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (MOOCS)

Nigeria has a total of ninety public universities that comprises of 43 federal and 47 state owned universities. However, there is still increase in the demand for higher education through Nigerian public universities, while economic recession is limiting the availability of required physical infrastructures to cater for the demand. Thus, almost one million (1,000,000) people are being denied access to higher education every year and a total of 65million Nigerians are illiterates. This is a clear indication that unless corrective measure is taken through the adoption Massive Open Online Courses, Nigeria will in the nearest future experience high level of “forced illiteracy". Therefore, this study proposes to investigate the intention to adopt MOOCs within the context of Nigerian public universities. Currently, only one out of ninety public universities have adopted MOOCs. The study of the intention to adopt MOOCs can help raise the rate of elearning and access to higher education in Nigeria by facilitating the adoption of MOOCs by investigating the factors that affect the lecturer’s intention to adopt MOOCs. Additionally, factors that determine the intention to adopt MOOCs will be investigated. The study is motivated by the increase of Nigerian population which is currently 197 million and it is expected to increase to 300 million by 2050.Thus, which also promote the level of illiteracy in Nigeria and results in the increase of forced illiteracy due to in accessibility of higher education and lack of admittance to the public universities which are now 90 in number. Significantly, the proposed study will enable the Nigerian public universities to mitigate the potential threats (“forced illiteracy”) that tend to occur due to the lack of access to education for the Nigerian populace by opening their access to all through MOOCs.