Customisation of the first Mauritian MOOC: aligning with Challenges of the Modern World for Education and Knowledge Management

Abstract

International audienceThe MOOC, Massive Open Online Course, is present in our landscape since 2008. The objective of such courses is to train a maximum of students via an online platform which requires an access to internet, motivation and willingness from the participant. Teaching requires organisation. With more and more courses being offered online teachers are constantly being asked to change their teaching style. Thus the organisation as well as the monitoring of students is changing. Online courses have taken another turn with the innovation, which are the MOOCs. MOOCs are non-fee paying courses, delivered mostly by recognised universities, course organisation and management was bound to change. By default MOOC courses are offered over a period of 1 to 1 and a half month, by course providers allowing courses to be hosted on their platforms, learning resources are often in the form of video lectures. Interactions with tutors are either synchronous or asynchronous. The appropriate evaluation mode for the high number of registered users for this type of course, is often the peer to peer evaluation. Another form of evaluation is the online quiz either assessed automatically or assessed by the system. With less than 10% successful completion rate for MOOC courses, Jordan 2013, and keeping in mind the Mauritian context, the Open University of Mauritius decided to offer a personalised MOOC, which could be referred to as a HOOC. A HOOC is defined by the literature as Hybrid Open Online Courses. By hybrid Daniel Peraya suggests blended courses that is online training and face-to-face sessions. It would be more a question of tutoring and guiding students rather than teaching them