Revising the MOOC

”Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Landscape Restoration”
A Massive Open Online Course from the ENABLE consortium

Land degradation is a widespread problem across the globe with serious consequences for the environment and all of society. Worsening land degradation caused by human activities is undermining the well-being of two-fifths of humanity, driving species extinctions and intensifying climate change. But there’s a huge potential for restoring landscapes: around two billion hectares of land, about two times the size of China, can be restored. 

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Description of the MOOC

In the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Landscape Restoration, learners stake a partnership approach and make a bridge between ecology and economy. Learners get to design their own innovative business model for landscape restoration with 4 returns: return of natural capital, return of social capital, return of inspiration and return of financial capital. 

In this MOOC, learners focus on the potential of business model innovation for the challenge of large-scale landscape restoration. Once enrolled, learners move from ideation towards successful implementation. Each step is illustrated with three real-life cases of landscape restoration in Spain, Iceland and Portugal. The MOOC can be found here: https://www.coursera.org/learn/bmi-sustainable-landscape-restoration

What did we revise?

Previously, the MOOC was designed for teamwork and included peer-review assessment – a mode of learning that is poorly supported by Coursera platform.  We redesigned the didactic features, resulting in a better flow in the individual learner experience, a better match between learner’s expectations and content and assessments in which learners are no longer dependent on other learners as in the former peer review model. 

The MOOC is now designed for individuals, but completing the MOOC is also still a possibility for teams. We also updated the workbook to facilitate the individual innovation design process and has a more streamlined layout. The revised edition merges the revised edition merges the new additions, such as quizzes, discussion prompts and reflection questions smoothly with the high-quality content from the original version.

Content of the MOOC

The MOOC highlights the following elements over a period of 8 weeks: 

  1. Vision Formulation

  2. Systems Analysis

  3. Stakeholder Analysis

  4. Opportunity Analysis

  5. Business Model Design

  6. Solution Validation

  7. Assessment & Monitoring

  8. Reflection & Iteration

 This MOOC provides you with a meaningful opportunity to start contributing to the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (https://www.decadeonrestoration.org/ ), which aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems on every continent and in every ocean. Your participation is more relevant now than ever!

 This MOOC builds on the MOOC "A Business Approach to Sustainable Landscape Restoration" but can also be followed as a stand-alone. In the first MOOC you get comprehensive knowledge of landscape degradation and landscape restoration from both the perspective of natural science and from an economics and management perspective. (https://www.coursera.org/learn/landscape-restoration-sustainable-development/home/welcome )

Who created this MOOC?

These MOOCs are designed by ENABLE, a consortium of: Erasmus University Rotterdam, Commonland, United Nations University Land Restoration Training Programme, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC-CEBAS), and Nova School of Business & Economics. ENABLE was co-funded by the Erasmus+-programme of the European Union.