Designing Massive Open Online Courses to take account of participant motivations and expectations

We report on a study conducted on a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to explore and improve understanding and practice about MOOC learning design and participant motivations and expectations. The 'Carpe Diem' MOOC was designed, developed and delivered in 2014. The MOOC participants' experiences were studied through surveys and interviews, and the analysis was triangulated. Three dominant motivations to complete the MOOC were found: to further existing knowledge, to acquire skills in the learning design process and to apply the learning design methodology in practice. We describe the relationship between participant motivations and expectations in this MOOC, which was undertaken mainly by participants who were themselves educators, and make recommendations for pedagogical design in MOOCs to promote and enable participant engagement and completion

Quality in MOOCs: Surveying the Terrain

The purpose of this review is to identify quality measures and to highlight some of the tensions surrounding notions of quality, as well as the need for new ways of thinking about and approaching quality in MOOCs. It draws on the literature on both MOOCs and quality in education more generally in order to provide a framework for thinking about quality and the different variables and questions that must be considered when conceptualising quality in MOOCs. The review adopts a relativist approach, positioning quality as a measure for a specific purpose. The review draws upon Biggs’s (1993) 3P model to explore notions and dimensions of quality in relation to MOOCs — presage, process and product variables — which correspond to an input–environment–output model. The review brings together literature examining how quality should be interpreted and assessed in MOOCs at a more general and theoretical level, as well as empirical research studies that explore how these ideas about quality can be operationalised, including the measures and instruments that can be employed. What emerges from the literature are the complexities involved in interpreting and measuring quality in MOOCs and the importance of both context and perspective to discussions of quality

MOOCS: What The Open University research tells us

This quality enhancement report recommends priority areas for university activity in relation to massive open online courses (MOOCs). It does this by bringing together all The Open University’s published research work in this area from the launch of the first MOOC in 2008 until February 2016. This includes work by 56 OU authors based in 11 units and regions

Massive Open Online Courses as affinity spaces for connected learning: Exploring effective learning interactions in one massive online community

This paper describes a participatory online culture – Connected Learning Massive Open Online Collaboration (CLMOOC) – and asks how its ethos of reciprocity and creative playfulness occurs. By analysing Twitter interactions over a four-week period, we conclude that this is due to the supportive nature of participants, who describe themselves as belonging to, or connected with, the community. We suggest that Gee’s concept of an affinity space is an appropriate model for CLMOOC and ask how this might be replicated in a higher education setting

Motivation in a language MOOC: issues for course designers

Whilst several existing studies on foreign language learning have explored motivation in more traditional settings (Dörnyei, 2003), this paper presents one of the first studies on the motivation of participants in a MOOC. The MOOC, Travailler en français (https://sites.google.com/site/mooctravaillerenfrancais/home), was a 5-week open online course for learners of French at level B1 of the CEFR, and aimed to develop language and employability skills for working in a francophone country. It took place in early 2014 and attracted more than 1000 participants. Intrinsic motivation (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000), is directly linked to one’s enjoyment of accomplishing a task. We conducted a study based on the cognitive variables of the Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985), and adapted the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory to the context of a MOOC in order to understand the expectancy beliefs and task values of participants engaging with the MOOC. Participants answered a 40 Likert-type questions on enjoyment/ interest (i.e. I will enjoy doing this MOOC very much), perceived competence (i.e. I think I will be able to perform successfully in the MOOC), effort (i.e. I will put a lot of effort in this MOOC), value/usefulness (i.e. I think that doing this MOOC will be useful for developing my skills), felt pressure and tension (i.e. I think I might feel pressured while doing the MOOC) and relatedness (i.e. I think I will feel like I can really trust the other participants). Results highlight significant factors that could directly influence intrinsic motivation for learning in a MOOC environment. The chapter makes recommendations for LMOOC designers based on the emerging profile of MOOC participants, on their motivation and self-determination, as well as on the pressures they might feel, including time pressures. Finally, the extent to which participants relate to each other, and are able to engage in social learning and interaction, is a real challenge for LMOOC designers

Student experiences with instructional videos in online learning environments

Drawing upon qualitative methods of semi-structured interviews and observational talk-through interviews, this qualitative dissertation investigates the ways in which graduate students in an online course context experience online instructional videos. A conceptual framework of user experience and multimodality, as well as the framework of sense-making developed by McCarthy and Wright (2004) guided this study and data analysis. The findings of this dissertation have implications for how students are participating in, interacting with, and making sense of online learning environments. Some of the findings of this research include: (a) students do not necessarily experience course videos as discrete elements (or differentiate them with other aspects of the course); (b) the times and contexts in which students view instructional videos shifts (e.g., between home and commuting); (c) student motivations and expectations shape how they approach and orient themselves towards watching online course videos; and (d) multimodal design elements influence students’ meaning-making of online instructional videos. These data findings are all in support of the overarching conclusion of this dissertation, which is that students have significant agency in these online environments, and their meaning-making of online videos may not align with designers’ intentions. This conclusion argues against deterministic views of design. The emerging findings have design implications related to the creation of learning environments in online spaces, such as: (a) fully integrating videos within the broader instructional design of a course; (b) foregrounding the embedded context of instructional videos; and (c) accounting for the shifting times, places, and contexts in which viewers watch instructional videos. This dissertation is situated in the growing field of online education, in particular higher education, where significant money and resources are increasingly dedicated towards the development of online spaces while still much is unknown in relation to the design, experiences, and impact of these online learning environments

A QUALITATIVE STUDY ON USAGE AND EFFECTIVENESS OF MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (MOOCS) IN INDIAN UNIVERSITY EDUCATION SYSTEM

Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the web. In addition to traditional course materials such as videos, readings, and problem sets, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that help build a community for students, professors, and teaching assistants. MOOCs have recently received a great deal of attention from the media, entrepreneurial vendors, education professionals and technologically literate sections of the public. MOOCs will provide free to access cutting edge courses to students of higher education in university system. Across the world, premier universities have put their courses online by setting up open learning platforms, such as edX. Commercial start-ups such as Coursera and Udacity have also been launched in collaboration with prestigious universities, offering online courses for free or charging a small fee for certification. The rapid expansion of MOOCs has sparked commercial interest from venture capitalists and major corporations who want to enter the Higher Education (HE) market using a MOOC approach. Students’ motivation to participate in MOOCs is a significant area of interest. Factors that influence students’ motivation to learn include future economic benefit, development of personal and professional identity, challenge and achievement, enjoyment and fun. What motivates the MOOC learner? Surveys conducted by researchers at Duke University show that student motivations typically fell into one of four categories viz. a) To support lifelong learning or gain an understanding of the subject matter, with no particular expectations for  completion or achievement b) For fun, entertainment, social experience and intellectual stimulation c)  Convenience, often in conjunction with barriers to traditional education options d) To experience or explore online education (Belanger  and Thornton, 2013). In order to investigate the usage and effectiveness of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) of edX, Coursera, Udacity and Udemy in university system in India, a qualitative study was employed by the authors and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with students of higher education in Indian universities and teaching professionals in university setups. The authors interviewed the participants based on a list of questions expanded from the three primary research questions based on the awareness, content, usage and learning outcomes. The questions were open-ended, which allowed the participants to freely express their experiences, thoughts, and feelings about the use of MOOCs. This study demonstrates the awareness, usage and effectiveness of MOOCs among students and teaching professionals of Indian University system.    Article visualizations

An Investigation Into The Accessibility Of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are an evolution of open online learning that enables people to study online and for little or no cost. MOOCs can provide learners with the flexibility to learn, opportunities for social learning, and the chance to gain new skills and knowledge. While MOOCs have the potential to also bring these benefits to disabled learners, there is little understanding of how accessibility is embedded in the creation of MOOCs. The goal of this research has been to understand the accessibility barriers in MOOCs and to develop processes to identify and address those barriers. In the extant literature, the expectations of disabled learners when they take up MOOCs are not discussed and studies on MOOCs that report demographic data of learners do not consider disabled learners. However, disabled learners can face difficulties in accessing MOOCs, and certain learning designs of MOOCs may affect their engagement, causing them to miss out on opportunities offered by MOOCs. Technologies and the learning design approaches for MOOCs need to be as accessible as possible, so that learners can use MOOCs in a range of contexts, including via assistive technologies. This research has investigated the current state of accessibility in MOOCs. It has involved the following: Interviews with 26 MOOC providers; including software developers, accessibility managers, inclusion designers, instructional designers, course editors and learning media developers; Comparative quantitative survey data involving disabled and non-disabled learners participating in 14 MOOCs; Interviews with 15 disabled learners which have captured their experiences; and An accessibility audit was devised and then used to evaluate MOOCs from 4 major platforms: FutureLearn, edX, Coursera and Canvas. This audit comprises 4 components: technical accessibility, user experience (UX), quality and learning design; 10 experts were involved in its design and validation. This research programme has yielded an understanding of how MOOC providers cater for disabled learners, the motivations of disabled learners when taking part in MOOCs, and how MOOCs should be designed to be accessible for disabled learners. A range of barriers to accessibility in MOOCs have been identified, and an accessibility audit for MOOCs has been proposed. An open online learning environment should take into account learners’ abilities, learning goals, where learning takes place, and the different devices learners use. The research outcomes will be beneficial to MOOC providers to support the accessible design of MOOCs, including the educational resources and the platforms where the MOOCs are hosted. The ultimate beneficiaries of this research project are MOOC learners because accessible MOOCs will help support their lifelong learning and provide re-skilling opportunities