MOOCs represent one of the few places in which people are actually studying pedagogy at universities, and trying to improve it, John H. Cochrane notes:
Technology facilitates data collection. Unless you’re in the business, you would be very surprised to learn that college professors receive essentially no training in how to teach, no supervision of their classroom activities, and little feedback beyond a numerical rating at the end of the quarter. Though we are data-oriented empirical social scientists in our research lives, we do essentially no measurement or study of teaching effectiveness. The data collection and analysis that moocs provide may change that. Also, the presence (and necessity!) of a mooc staff means there are people whose job it is to keep up with those pedagogical lessons.