MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are online open courses for a long distance education, involving a large number of users who come from different places and are connected through the net. 
The access to these courses doesn’t require any fee payment and allows users to access material provided by professors and connecting with other users.
From 2013 Sapienza has been testing MOOC for several reasons:

1. To carry out the social role of spreading culture on a global level,
2. To develop continuous training programs,
3. To enhance themes linked to the territory, also in collaboration with local institutions and institutions, and disseminating them to a vast audience;
4. To follow the development of innovative teaching techniques and methodologies that can also be used "on campus",
5. To promote recovery actions aimed to students and high school students with shortcomings in the minimum requirements and attracting the best students from high school.

During the initial experimentation phase, Sapienza joined the Coursera Platform. Coursera, developed in 2012 is a Stanford University (USA) spin-off, is a global MOOC leader. It provides an efficient technological platform with courses from the best universities around the world.

Sapienza currently hosts the following courses on Coursera:

• Recovering the Human Past and Saving Our Universal Heritage - This course, which is taught in English, is directed by Prof. Paolo Matthiae together with Professors David Nadali, Andrea Vitaletti and Emanuel Demetrescu.
   
• At the Origins of the Mediterranean Civilization: Archaeology of the City from the Levant to the West - 3rd-1st millennium BC - Sapienza Professor Lorenzo Nigro examines the deepest roots of the mix of cultures that we call Mediterranean Civilization. (in English). This course is also available in Italian.

Previous Sapienza Courses (no longer available)

• Early Renaissance Architecture in Italy: from Alberti to Bramante - This course, which was taught in English by Prof. Francesco Paolo Fiore, was followed by more than 40,000 students worldwide.
• La Visione del Mondo della Relatività e della Meccanica Quantistica: concetti e idee - “A World View of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics” was taught by Prof. Charles Cosmelli. This was the first MOOC course that Sapienza offered in Italian. The course was followed by nearly 14,000 students.