[Book review] Populism, Media and Education: Challenging discrimination in contemporary digital societies

Published in January 2016, this book is based on a recent cross-European research project, ‘e-Engagement Against Violence’ (e-EAV), which ran from 2012 to 2014 and included research partners from seven EU member states. The project comprised two separate research strands, which are reflected in the structure of the book. First, a discursive approach known as Critical Frame Analysis was used in order to analyse populist communicative strategies online. For clarity, Ranieri sets out the definition of populism as used by the project as “an explorative concept to systematically analyse the ‘discursive strategies’ of ‘othering’ through which right-wing organisations construct and locate the ‘others’ ‘out of the people’ by making them objects of discrimination and exclusion” (Ranieri, 2016, p. 2). In contrast, the second part of the project involved an action research-based approach to design, implement and evaluate media literacy education practices, to improve young peoples’ awareness of the issues online and enhance civic engagement

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

Community tracking in a cMOOC and nomadic learner behavior identification on a connectivist rhizomatic learning network

This article contributes to the literature on connectivism, connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs) and rhizomatic learning by examining participant interactions, community formation and nomadic learner behavior in a particular cMOOC, #rhizo15, facilitated for 6 weeks by Dave Cormier. It further focuses on what we can learn by observing Twitter interactions particularly. As an explanatory mixed research design, Social Network Analysis and content analysis were employed for the purposes of the research. SNA is used at the macro, meso and micro levels, and content analysis of one week of the MOOC was conducted using the Community of Inquiry framework. The macro level analysis demonstrates that communities in a rhizomatic connectivist networks have chaotic relationships with other communities in different dimensions (clarified by use of hashtags of concurrent, past and future events). A key finding at the meso level was that as #rhizo15 progressed and number of active participants decreased, interaction increased in overall network. The micro level analysis further reveals that, though completely online, the nature of open online ecosystems are very convenient to facilitate the formation of community. The content analysis of week 3 tweets demonstrated that cognitive presence was the most frequently observed, while teaching presence (teaching behaviors of both facilitator and participants) was the lowest. This research recognizes the limitations of looking only at Twitter when #rhizo15 conversations occurred over multiple platforms frequented by overlapping but not identical groups of people. However, it provides a valuable partial perspective at the macro meso and micro levels that contribute to our understanding of community-building in cMOOCs

How to design for persistence and retention in MOOCs?

Design of educational interventions is typically carried out following a design cycle involving phases of investigation, conceptualization, prototyping, implementation, execution and evaluation. This cycle can be applied at different levels of granularity e.g. learning activity, module, course or programme. In this paper we consider an aspect of learner behavior that can be critical to the success of many MOOCs i.e. their persistence to study, and the related theme of learner retention. We reflect on the impact that consideration of these can have on design decisions at different stages in the design cycle with the aim of en-hancing MOOC design in relation to learner persistence and retention, with particular attention to the European context

Understanding Communication Patterns in MOOCs: Combining Data Mining and qualitative methods

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer unprecedented opportunities to learn at scale. Within a few years, the phenomenon of crowd-based learning has gained enormous popularity with millions of learners across the globe participating in courses ranging from Popular Music to Astrophysics. They have captured the imaginations of many, attracting significant media attention - with The New York Times naming 2012 "The Year of the MOOC." For those engaged in learning analytics and educational data mining, MOOCs have provided an exciting opportunity to develop innovative methodologies that harness big data in education.Comment: Preprint of a chapter to appear in "Data Mining and Learning Analytics: Applications in Educational Research

FLAX: Flexible and open corpus-based language collections development

In this case study we present innovative work in building open corpus-based language collections by focusing on a description of the opensource multilingual Flexible Language Acquisition (FLAX) language project, which is an ongoing example of open materials development practices for language teaching and learning. We present language-learning contexts from across formal and informal language learning in English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Our experience relates to Open Educational Resource (OER) options and Practices (OEP) which are available for developing and distributing online subject-specific language materials for uses in academic and professional settings. We are particularly concerned with closing the gap in language teacher training where competencies in materials development are still dominated by print-based proprietary course book publications. We are also concerned with the growing gap in language teaching practitioner competencies for understanding important issues of copyright and licencing that are changing rapidly in the context of digital and web literacy developments. These key issues are being largely ignored in the informal language teaching practitioner discussions and in the formal research into teaching and materials development practices

Engaged learning in MOOCs: a study using the UK Engagement Survey

This study sets out to answer the question: how can we know what learning is taking place in MOOCs? From this starting point, the study then looks to identify MOOCs’ potential for future use in HE? Using a specially-adapted version of the HEA’s UK Engagement Survey (UKES) 2014, the research team at the University of Southampton asked participants who had completed one of two MOOCs delivered through the FutureLearn platform and designed and run at the university about their experiences as learners and their engagement with their respective MOOC. The results also show that both of the MOOCs were successful in enabling many participants to feel engaged in intellectual endeavours such as forming new understandings, making connections with previous knowledge and experience, and exploring knowledge actively, creatively and critically. In response to the open access approach – in which no one taking part in a MOOC is required to have a minimum level of previous educational achievement - the report shows that persistent learners engaged, regardless of prior educational attainment

Innovation in incapacity: education, technique, subject

Abstract This essay addresses the question of change as it is expressed in debates on the introduction and use of new digital technologies in contemporary education. It sets out some of the terms of this debate, concerning MOOCs in particular, and puts into question the very conception of change they presume. The essay advocates a distinction between education, which marks the subjective capacity of all for thought, and pedagogy, which, the essay argues, teaches subjective incapacity for all. The case is made that without a formal conception of change MOOCs will only strengthen the contemporary pedagogical project of difference as repetition. In conclusion, the essay attempts to sketch a conception of real change such that a new orientation to the debate is proposed