MOOCs, SPOCs and next generation Open Access Learning

The article analyses the behaviour of some 150,000 registrants for the inaugural edX course — 6.002x: Circuits and Electronics, which was offered in the spring of 2012. The analysis is based on the log files for the course, constituting an exemplary case of the application of learning analytics in action (although the authors don’t use that term at all). It consists of two parts. First, the authors take the data of all registrants into account, later to focus on those relatively few (about 10,000) who managed to earn a course certificate. 

Overall, this is an interesting and useful study. I have two minor qualms with it. First, the analysis focuses on those registrants who passed the exam and earned a certificate. Although the 10,000 students who managed to do this is a sizable number, it pales with the 150,000 who registred in the first place. Second, and as far as I am concerned more importantly, no attempts is made to frame the discussion in the context of a particular learning theory. However, these qualms do not detract from the value of this study, it deserves to be widely read, particularly by people who are engaged in learning analytics (who might miss it as that term is not used). @pbsloep

(see for a more extensive discussion of the article my blog post at http://pbsloep.blogspot.nl/2014/04/who-does-what-in-massive-open-online.html) 

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

A great outcome for those who don't like travelling (not me) and want to train/teach those who are in need of knowledge they are able to give.

Keynote presentation given at the third Computer Science Education Research Conference (CSERC) (http://www.ou.nl/cserc) at Arnhem, Netherlands today by Fred Martin. Fred gave an overview of recent MOOC developments. He acknowledged that there are good points, such as MOOCs often being taught by famous professors and the idea to cut up the material taught in bite-sized chunks. But he also identified four serious problems: i) MOOCs embody an information transfer driven pedagogy; ii) it is a fallacy to believe that, since they come out of elite universities, MOOC quality is uniformly high; iii) they promise access for underprivileged people but can't really deliver on this; and iv) finally they are viewed by US politicians as a means to lower the cost of education.  Even though it is something that particularly, perhaps even uniquely, applies to the USA, I find the fourth point particularly worrying. If you legally forbid tax hikes so they can't even keep pace with compensation for inflation, as is done in California, then inevitably students at universities and community colleges (or their parents) will have to foot that bill themselves. Hailing MOOCs as the solution to this problem of the rising cost of education almost, as one Californian senator does, is misleading at best as you refuse to identify the real problem, it would seem to me. (@pbsloep) 

Are MOOCs in the USA often portroyed as a means to save money and beat the towering tuition fees, in Europe they could help create a European identity. And why not? What is missing from the discussion are the elite universities. There is no doubt in my mind that a large part of the reason for people to enrol in a MOOC is the chance to learn from the best in the field. So this must somehow be taken into account. But an interesting thought nevertheless, one that for once is not so much about money as it is about improving education and instilling a (European) civic identity. (@pbsloep)

No doubt we need a European perspective to savour the context of diversity we enjoy so much. So maybe this diversity will help us to overcome the idea that we need a European online university. There must be better ways to create a truly European dimension that will favour innovation and transformation in HE in a timely manner.

Extrait  (trad libre):

"Les Moocs, solution de survie pour les petites universités, constituent une occasion unique pour créer une université véritablement européenne. Mais il faudra que cela soit différent et bien plus ambitieux qu'une simple version en ligne du programme Erasmus, et la slution devra être plus compleète que Coursera et Udacity."

Fascinating thought experiment about sharing learner data between Courses, by different schools across different MOOC platforms. In the spirit of Learning Analytics, it could improve teaching and learning through various kinds of partnerships. Simon explains this quite well.  

Whom I miss from the equation is the learner. In the triple of MOOC provider, content providing school Partner and Course (see picture), I miss the L of learner (some would argue, also the T of teacher, but I assume giving teachers their due is the responsibility of the Partner institution). The L of learners matters, lest schools end up to be data providers for the MOOC platforms, who no doubt will do what Facebook, Twitter and Google do with those data: sell them for a profit (after all, the course is free, so that is the deal you knowingly make as a learner). The picture is less bleak if schools (Partners) host their own MOOC platforms rather than use the commercial ones. But even then explicit attention right from the beginning for the learner's privacy is needed, not because the law tells us so, but because we need to take learners seriously. See also my blog posts on Online Learner Identities where I discuss the problem and some possible solutions. Find the last one here: http://tiny.cc/c15nrw ; (@pbsloep)

I did not sit through the entire video, so you have to take Gene Roche's word for it. However, Gene's blog post gives a very good summary of what it takes to produce a MOOC and what Page's mission was when producing it. There's one sentence I want to share with you here: "As he [Page] emphasizes several times throughout the program, the real mission of the university is having an impact on the way students (and others) think — not in turning a profit." That of course stands in an interesting contrast with the intentions of the MOOC providers. (@pbsloep)

Last week I reported on the EMOOCs conference, in which a significant part was reserved for reporting on various experiences with and research results on MOOCs. This July a workshop will be held focussing on data mining in MOOCs. If MOOCs are as massive as their name suggests - which of course is not always the case in actual fact - then data mining should be particularly profitable. It should give us insights in how MOOCs fare but also on how to generate the raw material on which recommenders may operate. The call for papers is still open until April 14th, so everybody who has a data mining & MOOCs axe to grind, pay attention! @pbsloep

Exactly what it says it is, but it nicely highlights the variety that underlies MOOCs and our talk about them (@pbsloep)

un concepto dudoso y intrigante.

H817 students, this blog and Sloep's response are worth thinking about. It's something we can directly relate to within our own MOOC. Are you satisfied with the learning effect and production of knowledge? Are blogs and forum postings mainly reiterations or are novel ideas coming to the fore and being developed in further discussions?

A insightful and thorough critique of why peer grading in the humanities won't work. Jonathan Rees is a professor of history himself who uses peer assessment in this classes a lot certainly is the right person to pass judgement (note the difference between assessment and grading, the former is formative, the latter summative). And it is negative. Indeed, he argues that if this practice were to catch on, it suggests grading (in the humanities) is easy, while in actual fact it is through careful comments and not the grades per se that people learn. Actuallly, I think this applies quite generallly. It is through reflection that you learn deeply, good feedback helps you reflect more deeply and a grade isn't good feedback. (@pbsloep)

This extensive and well-argued article takes an unusual stance in that it focusses on Further Education Colleges. Indeed, such a focus is badly needed as MOOCs and FE at first sight seem natural allies. And although the post is UK centric, it is well worth reading.

Cathy Ellis' argument consists of five points. Her first point, lack of funding on formal grounds, sounds specific to the UK, although others might recognise it. Her second is an interesting one, as it goes a long way towards explaining the success of MOOCs: "In the era of YouTube and TED, the ‘teacher as performer’ has taken root, and academics who would previously have stayed in their dusty lecture halls are now clamouring to be on stage. This has bred the era of the ‘rock star’ or ‘celebrity academic’ ...." This leads her to suggest to "Do your own TED-events and create your own YouTube channel".

Third, she advises against 'offshore' MOOC providers. A MOOC platform connected to the local VLE has the advantage of churning out useful data. This does not imply we should dismiss the "'industrial' scale MOOCs", they are "like an amplification of Open Educational Resources' and should be thus used, Cathy argues (4). Finally, MOOCs have done their job if their advent "mobilises leadership and policy makers to engage seriously with Educational Technology and support the sector in providing the conditions for it to flourish."

What the article argues for then, is to mainstream MOOCs: We use the technology to inspire our own teaching, we use the 'industrial' platforms and their content as OERs. Makes sense, if the colleges in HE and FE (and elsewhere) manage to survive the MOOC swell. With the "ever growing commodification of education" - Cathy's own words - this is no certainty, as I have argued elsewhere.