WHITHER THE MOOC?

This paper is written to encourage debate on MOOCs in higher education in general and in business schools in particular. It reports the results of a small study of a MOOC being used to supplement an MBA class in Information Systems Management. Although the sample size is small and there are obvious limitations as to what can be drawn from the data, the study does confirm a previous study and provides some interesting results, particularly around the desire of MBA students to take classes this way. It ends with a discussion around recent developments and calls for more research and involvement by academics

Online learning: increasing learning opportunities

Internet and networked technologies have expanded delivery mode opportunities in education. In recent years, many universities have offered either predominantly online courses or online learning platforms embedded within traditional modes of on-campus and face-to-face learning. Online learning has thus developed into a priority within modern educational facilities and has grown significantly both in Australia and other countries. To consider the connection between student learning and effective integration of technology, this study provides an overview about the requirements for learning in a modern society. It will discuss current reforms in higher education to accommodate a new generation of digital Australians and to prioritize teaching and learning issues in online environments

Improving The Learning Design of Massive Open Online Courses

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) can be regarded as a promising next step in the evolution of distance education. However, they have been criticised for their poor learning design. This article describes the development of an adequate learning design in a series of nineteen MOOCs (called online master classes). A formative evaluation focuses on participation and user satisfaction. A total amount of 2083 individual learners enrolled in online master classes. Overall the user satisfaction is positive and stable. Thirteen pedagogical requirements for MOOCs form the output of this evaluation. It is concluded that the learning design that has been developed, matches with the pedagogical principles of distance education for adult learners. The format has proven to support more a diverse group of learners than the still dominant MOOC formats

The MOOCs are Coming! Revolution or Fad in the Business School?

The massive open online course (MOOC) phenomenon has been the subject of extraordinary hype over the last 12 months. This paper represents the first academic study of student satisfaction with a MOOC—this one experienced as part of an information systems class in an MBA program. We developed a causal model based on the literature was and measured 1) student satisfaction with the learning experience and 2) students’ desire to take more courses this way. Using structural equation modeling, the analysis indicated that content in terms of quality and course materials, along with the opportunity for college credit, were the dominant factors in satisfaction, which, in turn, influenced the desire for more courses. The paper ends with a call for action by university administrators to proactively manage this new technology rather than adopt a “wait and see” attitude

MOOCs and the Online Delivery of Business Education: What\u27s New? What\u27s Not? What Now?

Although the past 2 decades have produced much promise (and accompanying research) on the use of information technology (IT) in business school courses, it is not entirely clear whether IT has truly transformed management education. There are compelling arguments on both sides. On one hand, advocates for the transformative role of IT can point to several success stories. On the other hand, skeptics of the role of IT in management education can also point to support for their view. This lack of consensus has led researchers in Academy of Management Learning & Education to call for scholars to confront the bias against online education (Redpath, 2012) and engage in serious research on online education (Arbaugh, DeArmond, & Rau, 2013). In this article, we respond to these calls for research by using adaptive structuration theory to develop a conceptual model of three factors that influence the use of IT in business education. We review prior research for each factor and use the conceptual model to identify implications for the design and delivery of business education. Based on the implications, we offer recommendations and recognize challenges for business schools and faculty related to the use of IT in business education

Exploração, valor, conhecimento e trabalho na produção e reprodução de conteúdos educacionais online

Este artículo intenta abordar la explotación por reproducción de trabajadores docentes que preparan contenidos para educación en línea en procesos productivos con fines de lucro. El enfoque teórico se basa en una definición y una tipología de diferentes tipos de explotación. La evidencia empírica proviene de dos encuestas cortas gemelas respondidas por 129 académicos con sede en el Reino Unido y Argentina. Concluimos que los docentes tienden a asociar la remuneración esperada con el tiempo dedicado a preparar las clases –más que con sus conocimientos-, lo que ofrece una base favorable al florecimiento de la explotación por reproducción.This article intends to tackle, the capitalist exploitation through reproduction of teachers producing content for online courses in for profit productive processes. The theoretical approach relies on a definition and a tipology of different kinds of exploitation. The empirical evidence comes from two twin short surveys answered by 129 academics based in the UK and Argentina. We conclude that teachers tend to associate their expected remuneration with time spent preparing classes –rather than their knowledge-, which enables exploitation through reproduction.Este artigo tenta abordar a exploração por reprodução de docentes que elaboram conteúdos para a educação online em processos produtivos com fins lucrativos. A abordagem teórica baseia-se na definição e tipologia dos diferentes tipos de exploração. A evidência empírica vem de duas pesquisas curtas gêmeas respondidas por 129 acadêmicos baseados no Reino Unido e na Argentina. Concluímos que os professores pretendem associar a remuneração esperada com o tempo despendido na preparação das aulas - e não com os seus conhecimentos -, o que oferece uma base favorável para o florescimento da exploração pela reprodução.Facultad de Trabajo Socia

MOOCs: The final frontier for higher education

This report compiles the latest literature in the field on [massive open online courses] MOOCs and presents four case studies including MIT OpenCourseWare, FutureLearn, Coursera and EdX

A data mining approach to ontology learning for automatic content-related question-answering in MOOCs.

The advent of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allows massive volume of registrants to enrol in these MOOCs. This research aims to offer MOOCs registrants with automatic content related feedback to fulfil their cognitive needs. A framework is proposed which consists of three modules which are the subject ontology learning module, the short text classification module, and the question answering module. Unlike previous research, to identify relevant concepts for ontology learning a regular expression parser approach is used. Also, the relevant concepts are extracted from unstructured documents. To build the concept hierarchy, a frequent pattern mining approach is used which is guided by a heuristic function to ensure that sibling concepts are at the same level in the hierarchy. As this process does not require specific lexical or syntactic information, it can be applied to any subject. To validate the approach, the resulting ontology is used in a question-answering system which analyses students' content-related questions and generates answers for them. Textbook end of chapter questions/answers are used to validate the question-answering system. The resulting ontology is compared vs. the use of Text2Onto for the question-answering system, and it achieved favourable results. Finally, different indexing approaches based on a subject's ontology are investigated when classifying short text in MOOCs forum discussion data; the investigated indexing approaches are: unigram-based, concept-based and hierarchical concept indexing. The experimental results show that the ontology-based feature indexing approaches outperform the unigram-based indexing approach. Experiments are done in binary classification and multiple labels classification settings . The results are consistent and show that hierarchical concept indexing outperforms both concept-based and unigram-based indexing. The BAGGING and random forests classifiers achieved the best result among the tested classifiers

Fundraising Managers’ Perceptions of Online Education’s Influence on Fundraising Practices and Giving

The influence of online education on higher education fundraising practices and giving patterns is not well understood. This qualitative case study explored how fundraising managers perceived the impact of online education on higher education fundraising. To explore this phenomenon, the researcher interviewed fundraising managers at private, nonprofit colleges and universities in the western United States, and reviewed publicly available documents on the participant schools fundraising and financial information. The interviews demonstrated that study participants were concerned about connecting with graduates of online programs, and perceived that online students may have less affinity for their alma mater than on-ground alumni. The fundraising managers interviewed reported that data on the giving patterns and the most effective strategies to engage online alumni are still emerging. Despite this lack of information, the fundraising managers interviewed believed that targeted, personalized solicitations may be the best way to engage and solicit funds from graduates of online programs