Initial motivation is a key factor for learning in massive open online courses
Since MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) started the OpenCourseWare movement by publishing its course materials as open educational resources, many types of initiatives have been developed to open access to education via the use of digital technologies. Among other resources, MOOCs have proliferated. These offer specialized online courses (often free) to an unlimited number of students. However, the drop-out rate of students that start a MOOC (massive open online course) are very high. It is therefore useful to analyze the student profiles, establishing typologies and individual profiles. As the study by the Personal Network and Community Laboratory (LRPC) and the JRC shows, the initial diagnosis of learning intention can be very useful for improving educational performance.