Learning in a small, task–oriented, connectivist MOOC: Pedagogical issues and implications for higher education

During the last decades, our society is witnessing an authentic revolution that, in a dizzying manner has deeply influenced, modified, and transformed the way of life of human beings. This constant and unstoppable revolution is transmuting all areas of our life: social, cultural, personal, labor, economic, training, etc. This new society is characterized by a high generation of knowledge and the constant and fluid processing of information. In this macro-context, the MOOC phenomenon emerged. MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) courses are based on the principles of massive, free access to all materials and resources offered online. This new didactic path can be constituted in an innovative techno-social tendency, especially oriented in the panorama of Higher Education to stimulate university improvement, open opportunities at the same time for education and training or, simply, derive towards a new business model for the universities. In addition to being an entry point for the popularization of science and knowledge, the future possibilities are enormous and are being studied in all their various dimensions. Many initiatives as a result have been developed to implement this new form of education. MOOC Courses and the Future of Higher Education presents the latest research theories and current examples of MOOC courses practices in Higher Education. The chapters represent an extensive assortment of interpretations and practices examples of MOOC courses, across areas as varied as teaching methodologies, instructional innovations, educational technology, etc. This work is structured in three sections, the first one covers the university institution in the knowledge society, the second analyzes the MOOC training proposals, and the third discusses the future role of MOOCs. Technical topics discussed in the book include: • The Virtualization of Teaching in Higher Education • Training and Professional Development at the e-University • Taxonomy of MOOCs • MOOC: Strengths and Weaknesses • MOOCs and the Scientific Community: Challenges and Innovation • MOOC Platforms • Directory of MOOC Resources • MOOC: Reflections of the Future

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) became very popular during the last years leading to an increasing global debate about their quality. To address the quality issues, several research surveys and instruments were developed to analyse the current status of MOOCs and to examine the different perspectives of learning with MOOC from core MOOC stakeholders. Based on a literature review and analysis of existing quality approaches and indicators for MOOCs, the Global MOOC Quality Survey was designed and conducted (n=267). Final objective is the development of the Quality Reference Framework (QRF) with quality indicators and tools in close collaboration with all interested stakeholders worldwide. This paper presents first results from the Global MOOC Quality survey relating to the overall experiences with MOOCs and their offered four interaction types: learner-facilitator (LF), learner-resource (LR), learner-learner (LL) and group-group (GG). There was a very high significant relationship (p<.001) between the learners' MOOC experience and the three interaction types LF, LR and LL and a significant relationship (p=.026) for the fourth interaction type GG. There was not a significant relationship between the designers' MOOC experience and all four interaction types. Comparing the different perspectives of learners and designers, our analysis presents significant differences in MOOC learners' and designers' intentions and experiences. Hence, it can be questioned whether MOOC designers are currently understanding and meeting the interests and demands of the MOOC learners.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have received both praise and condemnation in higher education. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) debuted in 2008, and the phenomenon quickly acquired global traction. The present study aims to increase understanding of the effects of MOOCs on higher education and teachers' attitudes towards this emerging type of education by analysing existing research and data. The current study is quantitative, and the survey method of data collection was chosen due to the nature of the study and its demand. The population of the study included all higher education teachers of West Bengal. The analysis shows that there is no significant difference in male and female teachers' attitudes towards Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), nor is there a significant difference in teachers' attitudes towards Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) based on teaching experience. The major findings show that MOOCs have a positive influence on the attitude of higher education teachers.

A massive open online course on the laws of thermodynamics has been designed using the 5Es (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate) lesson planning methodology and delivered using everyday engineering examples to provide familiar contexts for both a global cohort of more than 3000 learners ranging in age from teenagers to septuagenarians in 137 different countries plus a large class of 355 university undergraduates. In addition to the structured pedagogy, the massive open online course included innovations in the use of practical exercises, that could be performed in the learner’s kitchen, and worked examples to enhance the learning experience. The massive open online course was provided in parallel with an introductory undergraduate course and as an additional learning resource for the undergraduate students. A little less than one-fifth of the undergraduates participated in the massive open online course and just over half of these responded that it would be an acceptable substitute for traditional lectures. The percentage completing the massive open online course was relatively high at 28% compared to 21% for other massive open online courses on the same platform, which is attributed to the pedagogy and strong support for social learning based on a survey of fully participating learners in the last week of the five-week course.

Methods for teaching large numbers of people over the Internet have become a popular topic as new technologies for communication and teaching large audiences have emerged in recent years. Many educational institutions are turning toward MOOCs, or massive open online courses, as a technology for delivery of learning content. In this article, we describe a brief history of MOOCs and the technologies that support learning in MOOCs. We also illustrate what uniquely defines MOOCs in comparison to other forms of distance or online learning. We conclude with a discussion on the implications for teaching and learning with MOOCs and valuable steps for MOOC design, implementation, and future research.

This chapter analyzes the instructional quality and learning design of different categories of online courses and their history, with a special focus on massive open online courses (MOOCs). Online courses have a long tradition that has gained public attention, broad interest, and huge numbers of participants thanks to the introduction of free MOOCs accessible online for all interested learners worldwide. In this chapter, we first define MOOCs, their characteristics, and history. Afterward, theoretical frameworks and practical instruments and tools based on scientific research are presented. From the beginning, the quality of MOOCs (and of online courses in general) has been debated. That led to discussions about the learning design and outcomes of MOOCs, which we introduce in the next section. Key research findings and practical validated instruments for designing and evaluating MOOCs (and online courses in general) are presented. Then following, the key benefits of MOOCs and the main arguments and scenarios for their usage are summarized. Based on our analysis of the research results, practices, and standards, a framework for categories and types of (massive open) online courses is proposed, called the typologies of online courses (TOC) framework. As part of the global community for open educational resources (OER) and in combination with the UNESCO recommendation on OER, MOOCs can play a significant role in achieving the SDG4 of the United Nations: inclusive and equitable quality education for all. This is true in particular during times of public lockdowns, such as during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), a “one teacher for worldwide students and worldwide students learn together” teaching mode, have attracted public attention, have prompt the higher education reform and have provide an effective way to solve the difficulties in higher education. However, there is a contradiction between the attention of learners and the degree of difficulties in MOOCs: the more difficulty, the less attention. Reducing the difficulty level of MOOCs may draw lots of attention from society, but it can’t meet the requirements of classroom teaching in higher education. In this paper, a new teaching mode, MOOC + SPOCs (Small Private Online Courses), was explored to solve the contradiction. The new mode can make MOOC suitable to both learners from society and students from university classrooms. Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) collaborating with other 12 universities in China practiced MOOC + SPOCs teaching mode for more than 21,000 students on “College Computer” courses in 2014 fall semester. The practice indicated that in MOOC + SPOCs mode teach groups and learner groups in different universities can benefit from one high quality MOOC course and the interactions with each other. With MOOC + SPOCs mode, MOOC courses can be effectively involved in classroom teaching and prompt the higher education.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) continue to remain in the spotlight as a promising future education environment. However, more than 80% of learners stop learning before attending one-third of the course. Despite a continuous spread of MOOC and high dropout rate, little has examined the antecedent factors that influence student engagement in technology enhanced MOOC learning environment from the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) model. The purpose of this study was to empirically identify the effects of individuals’ basic psychological needs and the task–technology fit on MOOC learners’ continuance intention to use, as well as the mediating effect of student engagement in MOOCs. Based on survey data from 201 Korean-MOOC learners, structural equation modeling was employed to assess the model. The findings are as follows: The basic psychological needs in MOOCs did not directly affect continuance intention to use, but did affect student engagement; the task–technology fit of MOOCs directly affected continuance intention to use and student engagement; and student engagement in MOOCs mediated between the basic psychological needs and task–technology fit, and continuance intention to use. It directly affected continuance intention to use. Implications were suggested for designing courses in MOOCs to increase student engagement for continuance intention to use.

Aim/Purpose: This study aims to develop a theoretical framework for enhancing students’ higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) by integrating massive open online courses (MOOCs) with gamification elements. Background: There is a growing demand to develop students’ innovative thinking abilities through MOOCs, focusing on higher-order thinking skills (HOTS), which are essential for 21st-century challenges. While gamification has shown potential in enhancing HOTS, its integration within MOOCs to improve these skills remains underexplored. Enhancing students’ HOTS through MOOCs combined with gamification is crucial for developing advanced skills like analysis, evaluation, and creativity. Therefore, there is an urgent need for a robust theoretical framework that effectively merges MOOCs and gamification to enhance students’ HOTS. Methodology: This research used a qualitative research approach employing critical analysis techniques. The research procedures were guided by the SALSA framework. A total of 19 articles from the SCOPUS and Google Scholar databases were selected based on specific criteria: articles published between 2013-2023, articles with keywords such as MOOCs, gamification, higher-order thinking, or engagement, and articles written in English. Thematic analysis was conducted to identify common themes in the selected articles. The proposed framework was developed by drawing upon well-established theories in the fields of educational technology, online learning, collaborative learning, connectivism, student engagement, and Bloom’s taxonomy. Contribution: This study not only synthesizes existing research on MOOCs but also presents a holistic and integrated framework for leveraging learning theories, gamification elements, student engagement dimensions, and HOTS to enhance the effectiveness of MOOC-based education. The proposed framework aims to provide researchers and educators with a comprehensive model for integrating gamification elements into MOOCs to enhance students’ higher-order thinking skills. By utilizing this framework, educators can design more engaging and effective online courses, while researchers can further investigate the impact of gamification on learning outcomes and student engagement. Findings: This study proposes a framework that integrates three main components: connectivism, online collaborative learning, and gamification principles. Implementing these components in the MOOC learning environment aims to enhance digital higher-order thinking as proposed by Churches and improve students' feelings and perceptions towards MOOC learning. Recommendations for Practitioners: By recognizing the unique challenges of maintaining students’ attention in the context of MOOC learning, practitioners can incorporate gamification elements into MOOC learning environments to enhance students’ HOTS. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers can further explore the understanding and measurement of the dynamics of interactions and engagement within MOOCs. Additionally, they should aim to identify which gamification elements effectively capture students’ attention and contribute to their overall engagement. Impact on Society: By focusing on HOTS, especially through gamification, society can anticipate a generation of individuals with improved critical thinking, problem-solving, and innovative capabilities. Furthermore, the implementation of connectivism in MOOCs can promote a global exchange of knowledge, resulting in diverse perspectives and a shared pool of information. This, in turn, will contribute to a more interconnected and collaborative world to address complex challenges. Future Research: The future direction of research in MOOC learning contexts should prioritize guaranteeing and fostering student engagement. It should also involve exploring the potential of gamification within MOOCs and refining instructional designs to specifically enhance higher-order thinking skills. By addressing these critical aspects, researchers can contribute to the ongoing evolution of online education and ensure its effectiveness and relevance in the ever-changing landscape of digital learning.

Open online distance learning in higher education has quickly gained popularity, expanded, and evolved, with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as the most recent development. New web technologies allow for scalable ways to deliver video lecture content, implement social forums and track student progress in MOOCs. However, we remain limited in our ability to assess complex and open-ended student assignments. In this paper, we present a study on the quality of self- and peer assessments in three MOOCs. In general, the quality of self-assessments and peer assessments was low to moderate, suggesting that both self-assessment and peer assessment should be used as assessment for learning instead of assessment of learning. Based on low correlations with final exam grades and other assessment forms, we conclude that self-assessments might not be a valid way to assess students’ performance in MOOCs. Yet the weekly quizzes and peer assessment significantly explained differences in students’ final exam scores, with one of the weekly quizzes as the strongest predictor. Future research on MOOCs implies a reconceptualization of education variables, including the role of assessment of students’ achievements.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), as one type of disruptive technology, has been described as the “campus tsunami” that is purportedly poised to change the face of higher education. Peer assessment has been adopted as a strategy to stimulate students’ active engagement in learning in MOOCs. While it is considered an effective pedagogical strategy to empower students and support learning by some, it is regarded as one of the main criticisms by others. It has been the focus of the dispute among developers of MOOCs in the field in the past few years. Based on a case of the MOOC entitled, The Red Chamber Dream, on Coursera, this study aims to explore the relationship between the perception of usefulness of peer assessment and the quality of learner assignments, and whether community knowledge is advanced in MOOCs facilitated by peer assessment. All notes related to learning in the discussion board were retrieved for further analysis. Notes indicating students’ perceptions about peer assessment were downloaded for analysis. Finally, students’ essays available on the course site were also saved in individual files for further analysis. Research found that there is no correlation between the quality of students’ essay writing and note writing and the reported usefulness of providing feedback/grading to their peers. Results also suggest that no correlation exists between the quality of students’ essay writing and note writing and the reported usefulness of receiving peer feedback. Meanwhile, results suggest that students were engaged in discussions and advanced their understanding. They produced a large number of explanations and knowledge building discourse, all of which involved knowledge advancement in each week. This improvement in knowledge may result in part from their expertise and in part from peer review of peers’ work. However, we cannot identity improvement of students’ work between different weeks.

MOOC(Massive Open Online Course)란 대단위로 누구나 무료로 수강할 수 있는 온라인 강좌이다. 이러한 MOOC가 기존 대학체계를 무너뜨리고, 교육의 새 지평을 열 것이라는 전망이 있었다. 그러나 MOOC는 기존의 고등교육기관을 위협할 것이라는 최초의 전망과는 다른 양상으로 진행되고 있다. 그래서 본 연구는 MOOC의 허와 실을 드러냄으로써 MOOC를 우리 고등교육의 실정에 맞게 제작하고 활용할 수 있는 논의의 시발점을 마련하고자 한다. MOOC는 기본적으로 온라인 교육이므로 기존 온라인 교육의 본질적인 문제점인 '상호작용, 감독 및 평가'의 문제를 그대로 계승할 수밖에 없다. 그리고 새로이 추가된 'Massive' 개념은 교육 현장에서 가장 민감한 부분인 강좌당 학생 수 문제를 불러일으키며, 'Open' 개념은 MOOC가 불특정 다수를 염두에 둔 강좌이므로 맞춤형 교육에 역행된다. 결론적으로 MOOC는 자기 주도적 학습 능력이 매우 탁월한 학습자들과 전통적인 온라인 고등교육기관에도 접근할 수 없는 사람들을 위한 교육 서비스로 자리매김 되고, 대학에서는 Flipped Learning의 수단으로 사용될 가능성이 매우 높다. 그러므로 향후 MOOC에서는 이 점이 고려되어 강좌의 대상에 맞게 차별화되어 개발될 필요가 있다. MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) is an online course aimed at limited participation and open access via the web. There is even the prospect that MOOC may break down the existing university system and open a new horizon of education. However, MOOC is going differently from the first prospect that it would threat the existing higher education institutions. So this study wishes to provide a starting point of discussion that we can produce and utilize MOOC to fit our situation of higher education by revealing the inherent problems of MOOC. MOOC is a basically online education, so that it cannot help inheriting the essential weakness of the existing one: the interaction, supervision and evaluation. The newly added concept 'massive' raises the problem of class size which is the most sensitive part in the field of education. The concept 'open' reverses a customized education because MOOC is a kind of video clips of a lecture for unspecific massive learners. As a conclusion, we predicts that MOOC will be positioned as a higher education service for very prominent learners in self-led learning ability and people who cannot access even traditional online higher education institutions. Also MOOC is highly likely to be used as a means of Flipped Learning in universities. Therefore, considering these points in the future, we need to develop MOOC to suit these targets.

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have recently become attractive at most universities, and the number of MOOCs has risen significantly, particularly in India. Despite their popularity, previous research has revealed a low course completion rate and a scarcity of research on the factors that influences learners’ retention in MOOCs. Therefore, it is a good idea to investigate previous research to understand the factors behind the learners’ retention so that an ideal learning model can be created. This study used Structural Equation Modelling to find out the unexplored learner retention factors in MOOCs and create a model, which may extend the satisfaction. MOOC data sets were collected from different Indian universities in Uttarakhand state. This study has explored the majority of influencing factors correlated with learners’ satisfaction. The findings show that MOOC usage intention is influenced by a willingness to credit mobility, the allure of the latest trendy course, content localisation and perceived effectiveness.

Open educational resources (OERs) and massive open online courses (MOOCs) have disrupted multiple areas of practice in higher education. OERs and MOOCs allow anyone with high-speed Internet access the opportunity to learn content from universities around the world. However, the lack of institutional credit for learning from a MOOC represents a major difference from the existing higher education model. Without credit or a degree from institutions offering MOOCs, students learning through these new formats have no commonly recognized means of representing their knowledge or skill development. Thus, the employability of students pursuing MOOC learning is unclear. The purpose of this study was to explore employers' perceptions of MOOC learning as they relate to the employability of MOOC students within the field of K-12 public education, with a focus on the three sub-fields of Business and Management, Education, and Information Technology. Utilizing disruption, perceptions of online learning, and credentialing as components of a conceptual framework, the researcher sought to answer the question of how K-12 public education employers perceive MOOC learning as a means of developing employable skills and knowledge. Web-based surveys and semi-structured interviews were used in a convergent parallel design to gather perceptual data.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to propose a research model based on the stimulus–organism–response (S–O–R) model to examine whether network externality, personalization and sociability as environmental feature antecedents to learners’ learning engagement (LE) can influence their learning persistence (LP) in massive open online courses (MOOCs).Design/methodology/approachSample data for this study were collected from learners who had experience in taking MOOCs provided by the MOOC platform launched by a well-known university in Taiwan, and 371 usable questionnaires were analyzed using structural equation modeling in this study.FindingsThis study proved that learners’ perceived network externality, personalization and sociability in MOOCs positively affected their cognitive LE, psychological LE and social LE elicited by MOOCs, which jointly led to their LP in MOOCs. The results support all proposed hypotheses, and the research model accounts for 76.2% of the variance in learners’ LP in MOOCs.Originality/valueThis study uses the S–O–R model as a theoretical base to construct learners’ LP in MOOCs as a series of the inner process, which is affected by network externality, personalization and sociability. It is worth noting that three psychological constructs including cognitive LE, psychological LE and social LE are used to represent learners’ organismic states of MOOCs usage. To date, hedonic/utilitarian concepts are more often adopted as organisms in previous studies using the S–O–R model, and psychological constructs have received lesser attention. Hence, this study’ contribution on the application of capturing psychological constructs for completely expounding three types of environmental features as antecedents to learners’ LP in MOOCs is well documented.