Archive for the ‘MOOCs’ Category

Exploratory study of MOOC learners’ demographics and motivation: The case of students involved in groups

This paper reports preliminary findings on students enrolled in a massive open online course, who were also assigned to work in groups. Part of a larger study on the effect of groups on retention and completion in MOOCs, the paper provides students’ demographics (i.e., location, gender, education level, and employment status), and motivation for taking […]

Research Trends in Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Theses and Dissertations: Surfing the Tsunami Wave

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have attracted a great deal of attention by higher education and private enterprises. MOOCs have evolved considerably since their emergence in 2008, all the while given rise to academic discussions on MOOC impact, design and reach. In an effort to understand MOOCs more comprehensively, this study analyzes theses and dissertations […]

How should we measure online learning activity?

The proliferation of Web-based learning objects makes finding and evaluating resources a considerable hurdle for learners to overcome. While established learning analytics methods provide feedback that can aid learner evaluation of learning resources, the adequacy and reliability of these methods is questioned. Because engagement with online learning is different from other Web activity, it is […]

edX universities say ‘NO’ to mediocre online learning

At a conference hosted by Harvard and MIT, schools using the open-source edX platform agreed on a common data structure for their online courses, with the goal of facilitating research on how students learn. eCampus News

MOOCs and Beyond

By now we know that MOOCs are not the final answer. Higher education will not be saved (or destroyed) by these massive open online courses that splashed into everyone’s consciousness about three years ago. Yes, they provide some fascinating opportunities for expanding access to higher education, for helping us to rethink how teaching and learning […]

Popular MITx philosophy MOOC introduces instructor grading

If one of the core philosophies of online learning is to democratize education, then a new verified certificate option for a philosophy course on MITx on edX — the massive open online courses (MOOCs) offered by the Institute — brings the concept full circle. MIT

OU Business School pioneers Europe’s first MOOCs for academic credit

The OU Business School is the first business school in Europe to offer credits for its courses through MOOCs on the FutureLearn platform. Starting from 15 August, learners could earn 30 credits towards a BA Business Studies or 15 credits towards an MBA. The Open University 

Download Report: Making Sense of MOOCs: New UNESCO-COL guide now available

New UNESCO-COL publication, “Making Sense of MOOCs: A Guide for Policy Makers in Developing Countries,” is now available. The Guide is designed to raise general awareness amongst policy makers in developing countries as to how Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) might address their concerns and priorities, particularly in terms of access to affordable quality higher […]

Are MOOCs Forever?

Think back to the early days of MOOCs. Professors at Stanford and Harvard and other places were suddenly teaching really big classes, free. Hundreds of thousands of students at once were in those courses. It was an unprecedented giveaway of what had traditionally been the most expensive education in the world. The Chronicle of Higher […]

Participant Association And Emergent Curriculum In A MOOC: Can The Community Be The Curriculum?

We investigated how participants associated with each other and developed community in a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about Rhizomatic Learning (Rhizo14). We compared learner experiences in two social networking sites (SNSs), Facebook and Twitter. Our combination of thematic analysis of qualitative survey data with analysis of participant observation, activity data, archives and visualisation of […]