What is it like to learn and participate in rhizomatic MOOCs? a collaborative autoethnography of #RHIZO14

In January 2014, we participated in a connectivist-style massive open online course (cMOOC) called "Rhizomatic Learning – The community is the curriculum" (#rhizo14). In rhizomatic learning, teacher and student roles are radically restructured. Course content and value come mostly from students; the teacher, at most, is a curator who provides a starting point and guidance and sometimes participates as a learner. Early on, we felt that we were in a unique learning experience that we wanted to capture in writing. Explaining #rhizo14 to others without the benefit of traditional processes, practices, roles, or structures, however, presented a challenge. We invited participants to contribute narratives to a collaborative autoethnography (CAE), which comprises an assortment of collaborative Google Docs, blog posts by individuals, and comments on those documents and posts. This strategy afforded insight into what many participants found to be a most engaging course and what for some was a transformative experience. In discussing the findings from the CAE, our intent is to benefit others interested in rhizomatic learning spaces such as cMOOCs. This authoethnography specifically addresses gaps both in the understanding of the learner experience in cMOOCs and in the nature of rhizomatic learning

Learner engagement in a MOOC in the Arab world: A case study analysis using the community of inquiry framework

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been offered by many institutions around the globe for the better part of a decade, and more recently in the Arab World. Learner engagement in MOOCs has also been researched in attempts to explain the varying degrees of engagement in these courses. This research aimed to explore the factors that affect learner engagement using an Arabic MOOC about E-Marketing offered by Edraak, one of the leading MOOC providers in the region, as a case study. This study used a mixed methods approach to explore the significance of the relationship between a) learner engagement and multiple demographic and psychographic variables of learners, and b) learner engagement and the perception of learners about the Community of Inquiry (CoI) presences; teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence. Additionally, the research included interviews with some of the learners who participated in the MOOC in order to better understand the factors they themselves attribute to their engagement or disengagement; aiming to also explore the relationship between their engagement levels and their motivations, intentions from enrolling in the MOOC and self-regulated learning strategies. This study used a Chi-square test to explore which variables and presences had statistically significant relationships with engagement, which was defined as the level of learner interaction with the course activities, namely watching the weekly videos and attempting to solve the weekly quizzes. The results of the Chi-square test as well as a thematic analysis of the interviews using the CoI model, theories of motivation, self-regulated learning and andragogy are presented. Results of Chi-square test indicated that there is in fact statistical significance between learner engagement and variables such as age group, goal from enrolling in the MOOC, knowledge about the MOOC subject, eligibility for receiving a course completion certificate, previous enrollment in MOOCs and self-motivation. There was no statistical significance observed between the level of learner engagement and their perceptions of the CoI presences. A discussion on the interpretation of this data, the study limitations as well as recommendations for future research is also presented

Digital resilience in higher education

Higher education institutions face a number of opportunities and challenges as the result of the digital revolution. The institutions perform a number of scholarship functions which can be affected by new technologies, and the desire is to retain these functions where appropriate, whilst the form they take may change. Much of the reaction to technological change comes from those with a vested interest in either wholesale change or maintaining the status quo. Taking the resilience metaphor from ecology, the authors propose a framework for analysing an institution’s ability to adapt to digital challenges. This framework is examined at two institutions (the UK Open University and Canada’s Athabasca University) using two current digital challenges, namely Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Access publishing

EU–originated MOOCs, with focus on multi- and single-institution platforms

No abstract available

Using open education practices across the Mediterranean for intercultural curriculum development in higher education

This multinational authored article presents the findings and recommendations of a three-year, European-funded project ‘OpenMed: Opening up education in South Mediterranean countries’, which brought together five higher education partners from Europe and nine from the South Mediterranean region. This was the first cross-European initiative to promote the adoption of Open Educational Practices (OEP) within higher education involving educational institutions in each of the countries. A three-phase project design included gathering and analyzing case studies of OEPs globally, and, in particular, in the South Mediterranean; the organization of regional forums to encourage priorities for change; and the multi-national design and pilot implementation of a ‘training of trainers’ course for academic capacity building in OEPs as part of curricula reform. We will discuss how the cultural approaches used among experts and project partners with different national, linguistic, and educational backgrounds have instigated change in policy and practice at a personal, institutional, and national level. © 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group