Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are a relatively new form of education, offered by some of the best-known universities and attracting many hundreds of thousands of students. The authors describe MOOCs and the claims made about them and analyze two major impacts of these programs based on the first MOOC offered by McGill University. The first impact is the potential for expanded access to education offered by MOOCs, which this analysis finds to be more limited than often claimed. The second is the potential for radical educational practice in MOOCs, which is considered through the lens of andragogy. The authors find indications of interesting possibilities in this area, though they are not being exploited as fully--or as deliberately--as they could be.