MOOCs
Introductory Videos
Introduction to MOOCs (watch on YouTube) David Joyner introduces MOOCs as part of Technologies. Joyner, D. & Udacity (2016, June 6). Technologies: MOOCs Introductory Video. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Apmks_6b584 |
Introductory Resources
What Campus Leaders Need to Know about MOOCs A short summary to appear in the search results or content link list. > uses browser line breaks. | uses line formatting provided in the section, as below Location: is indented 1 TAB. Educause. (2012). What Campus Leaders Need to Know about MOOCs. Educause. Retrieved from: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB4005.pdf |
What We're Learning from Online Education "Daphne Koller is enticing top universities to put their most intriguing courses online for free — not just as a service, but as a way to research how people learn. With Coursera (cofounded by Andrew Ng), each keystroke, quiz, peer-to-peer discussion and self-graded assignment builds an unprecedented pool of data on how knowledge is processed. " Koller, D. (n.d.). What We're Learning from Online Education. Ted.com. Retrieved April 13, 2017 from: https://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_koller_what_we_re_learning_from_online_education?language=en |
A Short History of MOOCs and Distance Learning "Since MOOCs have started to multiply on the web, many discussions about their structure, effectiveness and openness have been appearing." Marques, J. (2013). A Short History of MOOCs and Distance Learning. MOOC News and Reviews. April 17, 2013. Retrieved from: http://moocnewsandreviews.com/a-short-history-of-moocs-and-distance-learning/ |
INTRODUCTION TO MOOCs: Avalanche, Illusion or Augmentation? This is a 12-page brief covering a wide range of topics regarding the impact of MOOCs from the UNESCO perspective. The short document provides summaries of the issues relevant to the organization at the time. UNESCO. (2013). What Campus Leaders Need to Know about MOOCs. UNESCO Institutes for Information Technologies in Education. July 2013. Retrieved from: http://iite.unesco.org/pics/publications/en/files/3214722.pdf |
An introductory resource, the page explains the content found at moocs.com. Blake, D. (2014). About MOOCs.com. moocs.com. November 27, 2013. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://moocs.com/about/ |
MOOCs: Expectations and Reality A short summary to appear in the search results or content link list. > uses browser line breaks. | uses line formatting provided in the section, as below Location: is indented 1 TAB. Hollands, F. M., & Tirthali, D. (2014). MOOCs: Expectations and Reality. Full Report. Online Submission. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://cbcse.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/MOOCs_Expectations_and_Reality.pdf |
Hyrid by Choice: Increasing Engagement in a High Enrollment Course "In many contemporary university settings, available course formats often present students and instructors with a binary choice in terms of participation: in class or online; with a rigid schedule determined by the instructor and/or institution. This article presents one possible innovation to that model, starting the process and championing the sentiment that agency must be granted in any reasonable way possible for progress to be made." Leslie, C. (2014). Hyrid by Choice: Increasing Engagement in a High Enrollment Course. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/hybrid-choice-increasing-engagement-high-enrollment-course/ |
Insights and Trends that Make MOOCs Matter "At EdSurge’s July SF Edtech Meetup, we invited Vishal Kapoor (Marketing at Vocareum), Chuong (Tom) Do (Software Engineer and Analytics Lead at Coursera) and Shannon Hughes (Senior Director of Marketing at Udemy) to share data and insights that help us appreciate the potential--and progress--of online learning and MOOCs from different perspectives." Wan, T. (2014). Insights and Trends that Make MOOCs Matter. EdSurge. Augsut 4, 2014. Retrieved from: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2014-08-04-insights-and-trends-that-make-moocs-matter |
The Strengths and Weaknesses of MOOCs, Part 1 Tony Bates directs an education oriented consultancy and has written extensively about MOOCs and online education. His personal blog (https://www.tonybates.ca/author/tony-bates/) may be of interest. The following quote is from the referenced article: "Because at the time of writing most MOOCs are less than three years old, there are not many research publications on MOOCs, although research activities are now beginning to pick up. Much of the research so far on MOOCs comes from the institutions offering MOOCs, mainly in the form of reports on enrolments. The commercial platform providers such as Coursera and Udacity have provided limited research information overall, which is a pity, because they have access to really big data sets. However, MIT and Harvard, the founding partners in edX, are conducting some research, mainly on their own courses. There is very little research to date on cMOOCs, and what there is is mainly qualitative." Educause Library: MOOCs (2017). Educause. educase.com. Retrieved from: https://library.educause.edu/topics/teaching-and-learning/massive-open-online-course-mooc |
Digital Pegagoy and the sub-site Hybrid Pegagoy discuss issues related to online learning and MOOCs. This link is for all the articles tagged with MOOCs. Articles Tagged MOOCs. (2017). Hybrid Pedagogy @ Digital Pedagogy. Retrived April 15, 2017 from: http://www.digitalpedagogylab.com/hybridped/tag/moocs/ |
The Educause Library provides a definition of MOOC and then follows up with multiple links about the topic in a single list below. Scroll down the page to get to the links. Educause Library: MOOCs (2017). Educause. educase.com. Retrieved from: https://library.educause.edu/topics/teaching-and-learning/massive-open-online-course-mooc |
Wikipedia is an open encyclopedia. This link is for the entry for Massive Open Online Course. Various. (2017). Massive Open Online Course. wikipedia. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course |
7 things you should know about MOOCs A massively open online course (MOOC) is a model for delivering learning content online to virtually any person—and as many of them—who wants to take the course. Course activities can be scheduled or asynchronous, and a fluid structure is valuable because students can choose their level of participation and many will do so in an à la carte manner. A MOOC throws open the doors of a course and invites anyone to enter, resulting in a new learning dynamic. Although this dynamic will make some students uneasy and will force instructors to rethink at least some of the elements of their courses, the MOOC can potentially alter the relationship between learner and instructor and between academe and the wider community. As MOOCs evolve, expectations and methods of presentation will likely crystallize, becoming more consistent and more predictable. Those enrolling in a MOOC are likely to discover learning at its most open on a platform that invites the world not only to see and hear but also to participate and collaborate. |
Scholarly Readings
Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility "The paper describes the short history of MOOCs and sets them in the wider context of the evolution of educational technology and open/distance learning." Daniel, J., (2012). Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of Myth, Paradox and Possibility. Journal of Interactive Media in Education. 2012(3), p.Art. 18. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/2012-18 Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://jime.open.ac.uk/articles/10.5334/2012-18/ |
MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education The authors provide an analysis of the current state of the MOOC and Open Education environment, primarily in the U.S. and Canada, but does so from a UK perspective. Yuan, L., Powell, S., & CETIS, J. (2013). MOOCs and open education: Implications for higher education. JISC Centre for Educational Technology Interoperability (CETIS) Standards. Retrieved from: http://publications.cetis.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MOOCs-and-Open-Education.pdf |
MOOCs and the Funnel of Participation This paper explores the use of data available from MOOCs and how such data might be used to the advantage of the students and the program. Clow, D. (2013, April). MOOCs and the funnel of participation. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 185-189). ACM. Standards. Retrieved from: http://oro.open.ac.uk/36657/1/dougclow-lak13-revised-submitted.pdf |
MOOCs and the Liberal Arts College This paper examines lessons based on the experience of small liberal arts colleges in the United States. What are the best tools, approaches, and structures emerging from the existing MOOC environment capable of positively impacting the use of MOOCs for small liberal arts colleges? Scholz, C. W. (2013). MOOCs and the liberal arts college. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2), 249. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://jolt.merlot.org/vol9no2/scholz_0613.htm |
Characteristics of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): A Research Review 2009-2012 The literature review explores three characteristics associated with MOOCs: varied definitions of openness, barriers to persistence, and one of two distinct pedagogical approaches. Kennedy, J. (2014). Characteristics of massive open online courses (MOOCs): A research review, 2009-2012. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 13(1). Online Submission. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://www.ncolr.org/jiol/issues/pdf/13.1.1.pdf |
MOOC Pedagogy: Gleaning Good Practice from Existing MOOCs "This position paper presents a pedagogical assessment of MOOCs using Chickering and Gamson's Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education and Bloom's Taxonomy" from the author's perspectice as a learner in four xMOOC programs. Bali, M. (2014). MOOC pedagogy: gleaning good practice from existing MOOCs. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(1), 44. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://jolt.merlot.org/vol10no1/bali_0314.pdf |
The author makes a case for improving assessment methods, sharing data within and between MOOCs, and the benefits of experimental design to improve MOOC performance. Reich, J. (2015). Rebooting MOOC research. Science, 347(6217), 34-35. Retrieved from: http://www.edtechresearcher.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Science-2015-Reich-34-5.pdf |
Transfer Learning for Predictive Models in Massive Open Online Courses The authors developed a process capable of metrics from previous courses and the previous weeks of the same course to make real-time predictions of learner behavior. Boyer, S., & Veeramachaneni, K. (2015, June). Transfer learning for predictive models in massive open online courses. In International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (pp. 54-63). Springer International Publishing. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/EVO-DesignOpt/groupWebSite/uploads/Site/Boyerveeramachaneni228.pdf |
Biographies
Senior Lecturer, IET, The Open University education, learning analytics, MOOCs, distance learning, online learning Verified email at open.ac.uk Google Scholar. (n.d.) Rebecca Ferguson. April 14, 2017. Retrieved from: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lfxvlmwAAAAJ&hl=en |
Professor (Catedrático de Universidad), Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Digital Education, Technology-enhanced Learning, Educational Technology, MOOCs Verified email at it.uc3m.es - Homepage (http://www.it.uc3m.es/cdk) Google Scholar. (n.d.) Carlos Delgado Kloos. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=v3g5DHIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works |
Research Scientist, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Machine Learning, Data Science, Big data, MOOCs Verified email at csail.mit.edu Google Scholar. (n.d.) Kalyan Veeramachaneni. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=7ysiTlUAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate |
Professor of Education, Penn State University Educational Technology, MOOCs, Digital Badges, Open Badges Verified email at psu.edu - Homepage (http://kylepeck.com/) Google Scholar. (n.d.) Kyle Peck. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_cpp840AAAAJ&hl=en |
Yorkville University, Canada Learning technology, adult education, MOOCs, personalized learning, networked learning Verified email at yorkvilleu.ca Google Scholar. (n.d.) Rita Kop. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CQy05v0AAAAJ&hl=en |
Ongoing Projects
"Our mission is to bring accessible, affordable, engaging, and highly effective higher education to the world. We believe that higher education is a basic human right, and we seek to empower our students to advance their education and careers." About Us. (2017). Udacity. Retrieved April 14, 2017 from: https://www.udacity.com/us |
Coursera is an online learning center, offering a very wide variety of topics, including liberal arts such as sociology and business. "We envision a world where anyone, anywhere can transform their life by accessing the world’s best learning experience." About Us. (2017). Coursera. Retrieved April 14, 2017 from: https://about.coursera.org/ |
Founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012, the edX mission is to: "Increase access to high-quality education for everyone, everywhere; Enhance teaching and learning on campus and online; And advance teaching and learning through research. About Us. (2017). edX. Retrieved April 14, 2017 from: https://www.edx.org/about-us |
Khan Academy is a leader in online education. The courses started with math, everything from basics to advanced math, and has expanded to included arts and humanities as well as cross-over productions from Pixar about animation. Khan Academy also includes primary and secondary school math curriculum for all grades. Khan Academy. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://www.khanacademy.org |
Through OCW, educators improve courses and curricula, making their schools more effective; students find additional resources to help them succeed; and independent learners enrich their lives and use the content to tackle some of our world’s most difficult challenges, including sustainable development, climate change, and cancer eradication. About Us. (2017). MIT OpenCourseware. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://ocw.mit.edu/about/ |
NovoEd is an education services platform. Customers can use the platform themselves or hire NovoEd to create them. NovoEd offers free courses here: https://course.novoed.com/courses NovoEd. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://novoed.com |
"Udemy is a global marketplace for learning and teaching online where students are mastering new skills and achieving their goals by learning from an extensive library of over 45,000 courses taught by expert instructors." About Us. (2017). Udemy. Retrieved April 15, 2017 from: https://about.udemy.com/ |
In the Media
The Evolving Role of Teaching in a MOOCs and Badges World In this opinion piece, Kyle Peck argues teachers will be re-placed (not replaced) by technology. In other words, work will remain but the functions will be different. Peck, K. (2013). The Evolving Role of Teaching in a MOOCs and Badges World. Evolllution. March 12, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: http://evolllution.com/opinions/role-teacher-moocs-badges-world/ |
An Early Report Card on Massive Online Open Course MOOCs rose to prominence in 2012. By the end of 2013, the weaknesses of MOOCs were beginning to show, in spite of large enrollments and commitments from big name universities such as Harvard and MIT. Fowler, G. (2013). An Early Report Card on Massive Online Open Courses. The Wall Street Journal. October 8, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: https://www.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303759604579093400834738972 |
While MOOCs may not have failed, they have not lived up to the now incredible claims of their pioneers. Sebastian Thrun's Udacity program, the University of Pennsylvania's international MOOC study, a New York Times article, and another article in Forbes are referenced in this article. Adams, S. (2013). Are MOOCs Really a Failure? Forbes. December 11, 2013. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/12/11/are-moocs-really-a-failure/#6060019fdaa2 |
Academics are Down on MOOCS. Business Schools aren't Clark, P. (2014). Academics are Down on MOOCs. Business Schools aren't. Bloomberg. January 16, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-01-16/academics-are-down-on-moocs-dot-business-schools-arent |
The Tricky Task of Figuring Out What Makes a MOOC Successful The authors argue traditional metrics, such as completion rates, are inappropriate measures of MOOC success. This article goes to a paywall filter: Whitelist the site to display ads (free access) or pay for access. Reich, J. & Ho, A. (2014). The Tricky Task of Figuring Out What Makes a MOOC Successful. The Atlantic. January 23, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/the-tricky-task-of-figuring-out-what-makes-a-mooc-successful/283274/ |
The author lists 8 misconceptions about MOOCs and what he perceives to be a better view. Kim, J. (2014). 8 Myths about MOOCs. Inside Higher Ed. August 13, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/8-myths-about-moocs |
MOOCs - Completion is not Important Less than 10% of students who start a MOOC complete it? So what. Students benefit even without completion and besides, "there's not much additional payoff for completion." LeBar, M. (2013). MOOCs - Completion is not Important. Forbes. September 16, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2014/09/16/moocs-finishing-is-not-the-important-part/#6955cb6778f6 |
The Harvard Gazette article discusses the results of a Harvard/MIT joint study about MOOC participants. A link to the 2015 results report and the 2014 results report are both included in the article. This article is interesting because rather than focusing on completion rates (Penn MOOC study from 2013), it's focusing on the participants and how MOOCs are being used. Massive Study on MOOCs. (2015). Harvard Gazette. April 1, 2015. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/04/massive-study-on-moocs/ |
The (Accidental) Power of MOOCs By 2015, MOOCs had already "flamed out", but the author says it's not time for them to say they were not useful. MOOCs, he claims, have the potential to influence teacher professional development. This article goes to a paywall filter: Whitelist the site to display ads (free access) or pay for access. Newton, D. (2015). The (Accidental) Power of MOOCs. The Atlantic. June 25, 2015. Retrieved April 16, 2017 from: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/06/the-secret-power-of-moocs/396608/ |
Interviews
MOOCs: Siya Raj Purohit (watch on YouTube) David Joyner interviews Siya Raj Purohit, Program Manager at Udacity, managing the app entrepreneurship nano degree, about MOOCs including new events in the field. Joyner, D. & Udacity. (2016, June 6). Online Learning: Siya Raj Purohit. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKLkg50SGtc |