During the past year, the phenomenon of Massive Open Online Courses – or MOOCs – has been a trend du jour within academia. Framed by co-founder George Siemens as “the Internet happening to education,” MOOCs offer a lens through which to explore how escalating complexity and information abundance impact 21st century higher ed. Alternately hailed and derided as a disruptive revolution in higher education, MOOCs make visible the fault lines emerging in contemporary academia. Because not only are networked practices encroaching on and expanding the boundaries of conventional educational institutions: so is neoliberalism. In this keynote for #WILU2013, Dave Cormier and Bonnie Stewart trace a narrative path through the various ways MOOCs challenge institutional education models, focusing particularly on the digital, networked practices that MOOCs were originally intended to embody. They outline rhizomatic and networked models of learning, and the conceptual structures that underpin education as a massive, open, and online enterprise.