Reciprocal Recommender System for Learners in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Massive open online courses (MOOC) describe platforms where users with completely different backgrounds subscribe to various courses on offer. MOOC forums and discussion boards offer learners a medium to communicate with each other and maximize their learning outcomes. However, oftentimes learners are hesitant to approach each other for different reasons (being shy, don't know the right match, etc.). In this paper, we propose a reciprocal recommender system which matches learners who are mutually interested in, and likely to communicate with each other based on their profile attributes like age, location, gender, qualification, interests, etc. We test our algorithm on data sampled using the publicly available MITx-Harvardx dataset and demonstrate that both attribute importance and reciprocity play an important role in forming the final recommendation list of learners. Our approach provides promising results for such a system to be implemented within an actual MOOC.Comment: 10 pages, accepted as full paper @ ICWL 201

Learning in MOOCs: The [Un]democratisation of Learning

Massive open online courses have been signaled as a disruptive and democratizing force in online, distance education. This position paper critiques these claims, examining the tensions between viewing MOOCs as products and students as customers, and the perspective of students as learners who may, or might not, be able to determine their own learning pathway. The capacity, or non-ability, to self-regulate learning leads to inequalities in the ways learners experience MOOCs. While some MOOCs have contributed to change, many replicate and reinforce education that privilege the elite. This paper argues a need to support the development of digital skills and core competencies, including the ability to self-regulate learning, to ensure learners can participate in a new democracy of open, online learning

How are higher education institutions dealing with openness?. A survey of practices, beliefs, and strategies in five European countries

Open Education is on the agenda of half of the surveyed Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in France, Germany, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom. For the other half of HEIs, Open Education does not seem to be an issue, at least at the time of the data collection of the survey (spring 2015). This report presents results of a representative a survey of Higher Education institutions in five European countries (France, Germany, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom) to enquire about their Open Education (OE) practices, beliefs and strategies (e.g MOOCs). It aims to provide evidence for the further development of OE to support the supports the Opening Up Communication (European Commission, 2013) and the renewed priority on Open Education, enabled by digital technologies, of ET2020

Research and Education in Computational Science and Engineering

Over the past two decades the field of computational science and engineering (CSE) has penetrated both basic and applied research in academia, industry, and laboratories to advance discovery, optimize systems, support decision-makers, and educate the scientific and engineering workforce. Informed by centuries of theory and experiment, CSE performs computational experiments to answer questions that neither theory nor experiment alone is equipped to answer. CSE provides scientists and engineers of all persuasions with algorithmic inventions and software systems that transcend disciplines and scales. Carried on a wave of digital technology, CSE brings the power of parallelism to bear on troves of data. Mathematics-based advanced computing has become a prevalent means of discovery and innovation in essentially all areas of science, engineering, technology, and society; and the CSE community is at the core of this transformation. However, a combination of disruptive developments---including the architectural complexity of extreme-scale computing, the data revolution that engulfs the planet, and the specialization required to follow the applications to new frontiers---is redefining the scope and reach of the CSE endeavor. This report describes the rapid expansion of CSE and the challenges to sustaining its bold advances. The report also presents strategies and directions for CSE research and education for the next decade.Comment: Major revision, to appear in SIAM Revie

The use, role and reception of open badges as a method for formative and summative reward in two Massive Open Online Courses

Open online learning courses such as cMOOCs and xMOOCs differ from conventional courses yet it remains uncertain how, and if, existing common yet costly practices associated with teacher-driven formative and summative assessment strategies can be made to work in this new context. For courses that carry no charge for registration or participation, authors of open online courses have to consider alternative approaches to engaging, motivating and sustaining study and for helping participants manage, plan and demonstrate their own learning. One such approach is that of open badges or similar such visual public symbols that communicate to others a particular quality, achievement or affiliation possessed by the owner. This paper reports the role, reception and use of open badges in two ‘massive’ open online courses delivered in 2013 with attention to varied functions of badges and the a distinction between formative and summative applications. The paper will then draw upon data from end of course surveys, which specifically asked about badges, pre-course surveys, and user comments made during the course on platforms such as Twitter to examine what value participants ascribed to the open badges. Although there was found to be a broadly positive response to badges in both MOOCs, the reasons for this were often very different, and approximately a quarter of respondents remained sceptical or concerned about their role. The paper concludes by reflecting on the open badge as a formative instrument for providing the learner with an indication of progress and achievement

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

A grid-based approach for processing group activity log files

The information collected regarding group activity in a collaborative learning environment requires classifying, structuring and processing. The aim is to process this information in order to extract, reveal and provide students and tutors with valuable knowledge, awareness and feedback in order to successfully perform the collaborative learning activity. However, the large amount of information generated during online group activity may be time-consuming to process and, hence, can hinder the real-time delivery of the information. In this study we show how a Grid-based paradigm can be used to effectively process and present the information regarding group activity gathered in the log files under a collaborative environment. The computational power of the Grid makes it possible to process a huge amount of event information, compute statistical results and present them, when needed, to the members of the online group and the tutors, who are geographically distributed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft