Didactics and Technology in Education

Another MOOC report, this time from University of London. Section 6 specially interesting for MOOC making. 

Project Planning a MOOC

The course teams involved with our MOOCs included experienced academics with familiarity in developing materials on a learning platform. Nonetheless, for each of them it was their first experience of MOOCs, as it was for the project planning team.

Delivering a MOOC

A range of styles and learning methods were adopted by the four MOOCs, appropriate to the subject matter covered. A MOOC structure of six weeks and 5-10 student effort hours per week of study appeared to be just right for the majority of students (55%). Some considerations for future delivery include:

< Well designed announcements at the beginning and end of each week that articulate with the topic coverage, learning activities and assessment methods can be effective at maintaining student interest and motivation.

< Management of forum threads and posts is a critical factor in dealing with massive scale short courses to ensure the majority of students are not affected negatively by the behaviour of a small number of the community, while preserving the openness of the discussion areas.

< The Coursera platform tools are significant and comprehensive in terms of plotting overall student activity, allowing evaluation of assessment data, as well as usage statistics on video resources and other learning activities; however, further refinement of these tools to enable both students and teaching staff to understand their progression at an individual level is necessary (and underway).

** Learning Resource Development

University of London MOOC Report .

I Barney Gracinger, U. London