Thomas Friedman in "Reinvention the key to finding a new job" San Jose Mercury News May 30, A-11 talks about how employers "increasingly don't care how ...skills were acquired:  home schooling, an online university, a massive open online course or Yale.  They just want to know one thing:  Can you add value?"  This implies he thinks that MOOCs can give employers what they want in employees! But remember that  MOOCs are simply collections of video clips plus multiple choice exams and possibly grading of essays by fellow students, what is called "peer grading."  They cannot be "massive" unless they avoid actual grading of papers by trained graders.. 

However, note that Friedman also quotes Eleanora Sharif from HireArt at www.hireart.com who says that "Many applicants don't have the skills that employers are seeking," and observes that HireArt asks its candidates "to do tasks that mimic the work they would do on the job."  Then he says "According to Sharef, 'What surprises me most about people's skills is how poor their writing and grammar are, even for college graduates.  If we can't get the basics right, there is a real problem."  So Friedman thinks that students who take MOOCs are going to do well in this area?  Although I am not surprised that college graduation does not guarantee good writings skills, this is largely because liberal arts education is being de-emphasized in the colleges, and writing is being de-emphasized in high schools.  As a professor in a liberal arts discipline, much of my work involves improving my students' writing skills.  MOOC promoters seek to replace teachers like me with automatons.  This is not the way to go.  By the way, I am not worried about my own job, as I could retire tomorrow if I wished:  I continue to teach because I love it and because I believe I "add value" to my students' lives including, among other things, helping learn them to think critically and creatively.  What I am concerned about is the future of higher education, and this is why I have started this blog.