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

Guidelines for structuring learning and teaching opportunities relevant to educators’ open educational resource (OER) engagement

Six guidelines for structuring learning and teaching opportunities relevant to educators’ open educational resource (OER) engagement are proposed in this document. The guidelines are designed to provide information and guidance to facilitate the design and construction of professional learning opportunities to support educators in building new learning practices around OER. In determining how best to support educators’ learning with and from OER, it is necessary to consider not only the nature and structure of learning opportunities they require but also the knowledge and content these opportunities should encompass. Six areas of knowledge that need to be targeted are proposed by these guidelines

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

Rethinking professional learning in higher education: a study on how the use of Open Educational Resources triggers the adoption of Open Educational Practice

This study explores how the practices of higher education educators evolve towards open educational practice (OEP) as they use open educational resources (OER) as a form of social media. Drawing on the theories of self-regulated learning (SRL) and cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), the study provides a novel way of analysing learning and development at work by focusing on related tensions. The interview data were, firstly, analysed by a thematic categorisation of 6 sub-categories of self-regulated learning and secondly, by using the method of discursive manifestations of contradictions. The findings evidence that educators find that their OEP does not fit easily within the current educational system. They have to balance conventional forms of education at scale with new and emerging open forms of education. This creates tensions indicating that educators need support in evolving their educational practice towards OEP and to reflect on what this change means for their practice

Manifestations of autonomy and control in a devolved schooling system. The case of New Zealand

This paper explores how two broad educational policy frameworks - the global educational reform movement (GERM) and the equity approach - have influenced and shaped recent education policy initiatives in New Zealand. The result is a tension within the New Zealand school system that simultaneously promotes and constrains teachers\u27 control and autonomy. Three policy initiatives: (1) the move to a devolved school system; (2) the introduction of a content-free curriculum; and (3) the implementation of National Standards at the primary level, act as mini case studies to examine how aspects of top-down control and standardization simultaneously intersect and compete with teacher autonomy. (DIPF/Orig.

Hacking History: Redressing Gender Inequities on Wikipedia Through an Editathon

Editathons are a relatively new type of learning event, which enable participants to create or edit Wikipedia content on a particular topic. This paper explores the experiences of nine participants of an editathon at the University of Edinburgh on the topic of the Edinburgh Seven, who were the first women to attend medical school in 19th century United Kingdom. This study draws on the critical approach to learning technology to position and explore an editathon as a learning opportunity to increase participants' critical awareness of how the Internet, open resources, and Wikipedia are shaping how we engage with information and construct knowledge. Within this, there is a particular focus on recognising persisting gender inequities and biases online. The qualitative interviews captured rich narrative learning stories, which traced the journey participants took during the editathon. Participants transformed from being online information consumers to active contributors (editors), prompting new critical understandings and an evolving sense of agency. The participants' learning was focused in three primary areas: (1) a rewriting of history that redresses gender inequities and the championing of the female voice on Wikipedia (both as editors and subject matter); (2) the role of Wikipedia in shaping society's access to and engagement with information, particularly information on traditionally marginalised subjects, and the interplay of the individual and the collective in developing and owning that knowledge; and (3) the positioning of traditional media in the digital age

Constructed Patriotism; Shifting (Re)Presentations and Performances of Patriotism Through Curriculum Materials

What does it mean to be patriotic? How are notions of patriotism (re)presented and performed in curriculum materials? In attempting to answer these questions, we contend that it is necessary to move beyond the word patriotic as an isolated concept to explore it in relation to specific temporal, geographic, political, economic, and institutional contexts. Patriotism, or to be patriotic, is conceptualized and means something quite different—and manifests differently—in different eras and in different countries. We utilize curriculum materials and documents as a lens through which to explore different conceptions and manifestations of patriotism as they pertain to the education of children in two very different national and historical contexts: communist central European Czechoslovakia of the 1970s and 1980s and contemporary New Zealand in the deep South Pacific. Patriotism in education in Czechoslovakia of the 1970s and 1980s took the form of positioning oneself loyal to one block (communist or non-communist) or another (enemy vs. non-enemy). In contrast, this form of nationalistic patriotism is largely absent from contemporary New Zealand education where, at least as it is conceptualized in educational policy, there is, as Roberts (2009) suggests, a “new patriotism” focused on success in the global economy. This new patriotism of contemporary New Zealand is more global and neoliberal in nature and stands in distinct contrast to the first-world, second-world structure of the patriotism visible in communist Czechoslovakia

Learning challenges in higher education : an analysis of contradictions within Open Educational Practice

Open education, including the use of open educational resources (OER) and the adoption of open education practice, has the potential to challenge educators to change their practice in fundamental ways. This paper forms part of a larger study focusing on higher education educators' learning from and through their engagement with OER. The first part of the study was a quantitative survey investigating educators' learning behaviour when they learned to use OER in their practice. The second part of the study explored qualitatively how educators engaged with OER and how they conceptualised their learning. Data were gathered through interviews with 30 higher education educators. This paper reports the analysis of these interviews. The analysis draws on the theory of self-regulated learning and cultural-historical activity theory to explore the challenges adult education practitioners encounter when changing their practice. The study tests the application of a framework that traces the discursive manifestations of contradictions, exploring how this framework can be used to examine different aspects of self-regulated learning as educators learn how to use OER. We have identified three distinct tensions in higher education educators' practice: tensions between the emerging needs of the individual (as he or she adopts new forms of practice) and organisational policies; between the transfer of responsibilities from educators to students as new practice is embedded and institutional accountability; and between cost efficiency and learning objectives. The framework for the discursive manifestations of contradictions was a useful tool used to surface these apparent tensions.Peer reviewe

Louisiana Tech’s Parkinson Resource Center Nursing Student Scholars

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Learning to become an online editor: the editathon as a learning environment

This study explores Wikipedia as a site for learning. It traces how people learn to become Wikipedia editors through engagement in an editathon, a training event for people who want to become a volunteer editor. The study is original in its emphasis on the various types of knowledge editors acquire as they develop expertise. Determining the knowledge needed to contribute to Wikipedia is significant in terms of understanding Wikipedia as a site for learning. Data was gathered from nine participants who took part in an “editathon” event. The study used a rigorous methodology, combining quantitative social network analysis, documenting the online activity of participants as they created and edited Wikipedia pages, with qualitative interviews about participants’ lived experiences during the editathon. Conceptual and procedural knowledge are representative of the foundational knowledge needed to contribute to Wikipedia actively as an editor. However, these knowledge types on their own are not sufficient. Editors also develop socio-cultural and relational forms of knowledge to enable them to operate and problem-solve effectively. The relationship between the physical and the digital is important, since socio-cultural and relational knowledge are developed through active experimentation as the editathon engage with physical objects to create the online wiki pages