Large scale analytics of global and regional MOOC providers: Differences in learners' demographics, preferences, and perceptions

[EN] Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) remarkably attracted global media attention, but the spotlight has been concentrated on a handful of English-language providers. While Coursera, edX, Udacity, and FutureLearn received most of the attention and scrutiny, an entirely new ecosystem of local MOOC providers was growing in parallel. This ecosystem is harder to study than the major players: they are spread around the world, have less staff devoted to maintaining research data, and operate in multiple languages with university and corporate regional partners. To better understand how online learning opportunities are expanding through this regional MOOC ecosystem, we created a research partnership among 15 different MOOC providers from nine countries. We gathered data from over eight million learners in six thousand MOOCs, and we conducted a large-scale survey with more than 10 thousand participants. From our analysis, we argue that these regional providers may be better positioned to meet the goals of expanding access to higher education in their regions than the better-known global providers. To make this claim we highlight three trends: first, regional providers attract a larger local population with more inclusive demographic profiles; second, students predominantly choose their courses based on topical interest, and regional providers do a better job at catering to those needs; and third, many students feel more at ease learning from institutions they already know and have references from. Our work raises the importance of local education in the global MOOC ecosystem, while calling for additional research and conversations across the diversity of MOOC providers.We would like to thank support from the MIT-SPAIN program sponsored by "la Caixa" Foundation SEED FUND. Jose A. Ruiperez-Valiente acknowledges support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion program (IJC2020-044852-I). Xitong Li acknowledges funding support from the French National Research Agency (ANR) [Grants ANR AAPG iMOOC-18-CE28-0020-01 and Investissements d'Avenir LabEx Ecodec Grant ANR-11-LABX-0047].Ruipérez-Valiente, JA.; Staubitz, T.; Jenner, M.; Halawa, S.; Zhang, J.; Despujol, I.; Maldonado-Mahauad, J.... (2022). Large scale analytics of global and regional MOOC providers: Differences in learners' demographics, preferences, and perceptions. Computers & Education. 180:1-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2021.10442611718

Experiencia en el uso del portafolio por medio de las redes sociales

[EN] At the UPV, the EICE teams: QtalNET and IEMA, are performing toghether the PIME project "Social ePortfolios", in which they are testing different assessment's techniques through electronic portfolios and social networks.The aim of the project is to develop a protocol to use social media through the process of creating e-portfolios, with the objective of value the skills acquired by students.This article describes the project and the experience consistent in various subjects, from different degrees, to evaluate the portfolios presented. Students can implement the portfolio through social networks (experimental group) or through a document (control groups). The develop is individual in every case. The weight of the portfolio in the evaluation goes from 60% to 100% (depending on the subject). The oral defense is realized to all the students (no matter if they are the experimental or the control group), they are given a brief guide with the aim of have the same structure to compare between different portfolios. In this article the method is exposed, as well as the reflections on their use.[ES] El objetivo principal del proyecto es elaborar un protocolo que permita usar las redes sociales durante el proceso de creación de portafolios electrónico para la evaluación de las competencias adquiridas por los alumnos. En este artículo se presenta el proyecto, así como la experiencia que se está realizando consistente en experimentar en diversas asignaturas de diferentes titulaciones el portafolios para evaluar. Los alumnos pueden implementar el portafolio a través de las redes sociales (grupos experimentales) o por medio de un documento (grupos de control). La realización en todos los casos es individual. El peso del portafolio en la evaluación va desde un 60% a un 100% (dependiendo de la asignatura). La defensa se realiza oralmente y a todos los alumnos (tanto si son del grupo experimental como de control) se les proporciona una breve guía para que la estructura pueda ser comparable entre los diferentes portafolios. En el presente artículo se expone el método seguido así como las reflexiones sobre su uso.Los autores deseamos agradecer su apoyo a la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería Informática (ETSINF), al Departamento de Informática de Sistemas y Computadores (DISCA) de la Universitat Politécnica de València (UPV) por su apoyo. El presente trabajo está realizado bajo el programa de Proyectos de Innovación y Mejora Educativa (PIME) el proyecto “Social ePortafolios: apoyo a la evaluación con portafolios electrónicos mediante redes sociales” sustentado por el Insitituto de Ciencias de la Educación (ICE) de la UPV.Poza-Lujan, J.; Cabrera, M.; Rebollo Pedruelo, M.; Calduch Losa, MDLA.; Díez-Somavilla, R.; Lloret Romero, MN.; Despujol Zabala, I.... (2015). Experiencia en el uso del portafolio por medio de las redes sociales. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/INRED2015.2015.1572

Macro MOOC learning analytics: exploring trends across global and regional providers

© 2020 Association for Computing Machinery. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have opened new educational possibilities for learners around the world. Most of the research and spotlight has been concentrated on a handful of global, English-language providers, but there are a growing number of regional providers of MOOCS in languages other than English. In this work, we have partnered with thirteen MOOC providers from around the world. We apply a multi-platform approach generating a joint and comparable analysis with data from millions of learners. This allows us to examine learning analytics trends at a macro level across various MOOC providers, with a goal of understanding which MOOC trends are globally universal and which of them are context-dependent. The analysis reports preliminary results on the differences and similarities of trends based on the country of origin, level of education, gender and age of their learners across global and regional MOOC providers. This study exemplifies the potential of macro learning analytics in MOOCs to understand the ecosystem and inform the whole community, while calling for more large scale studies in learning analytics through partnerships among researchers and institutions

Clinical outcomes of ANCA-associated vasculitis in elderly patients

BACKGROUND: Older age is independently associated with mortality in patients with anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV). We hypothesized that a reduced-dose immunosuppressive treatment would result in similar effectiveness and comparable treatment-related morbidity in elderly patients as the regular dose in younger patients. We also postulated that the higher baseline comorbidities may contribute to the higher mortality of the elderly subjects. METHODS: Ninety-three consecutive patients with AAV between 1998 and 2012 were retrospectively analyzed. Forty-one individuals were defined as "elderly" (age >65 years) and 52 as "younger" (age <65 years). All cause and cardiovascular mortality, death due to vasculitis and infections, and effectiveness of "reduced-dose" immunosuppressive treatment in the elderly group were compared to the effects of "full-dose" treatment in younger individuals. RESULTS: Mortality in the elderly group was higher (p = 0.007). Cardiovascular death was significantly increased (p = 0.002) in the elderly, but mortality due to vasculitis or infections was comparable. Treatment effectiveness was also similar in elderly and younger patients. At the end of the first follow-up year, 37 % of the elderly and 27 % of the younger patients died (p = 0.22). In univariate Cox regression analyses, being older than 65 year, having cardiovascular disease at baseline, need for dialysis at diagnosis, and lower serum albumin were associated with an increased hazard of mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Delivering reduced dose of immunosuppression for elderly patients was associated with satisfactory outcome and favorable treatment-related complication profile. The higher mortality in the elderly could be attributed mainly to baseline cardiovascular morbidity