scholarly journals Massive open online courses for professional certificate programs? Perspectives on professional learners’ longitudinal participation patterns

Author(s):  
Hengtao Tang ◽  
Wanli Xing

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been integrated into higher education systems as an option for delivering online professional degree and certificate programs; however, concerns about whether employed professionals actively participate in MOOCs remain unresolved. Some researchers have described learners’ employment as the major cause of attrition from MOOCs, but research has not addressed how employed learners interact with MOOCs over time. Understanding employed professionals’ trajectory of participation patterns across course time is thus essential to improving the effectiveness of MOOCs. This study investigated the log data of learner participation to explore how attrition occurs in a professional MOOC, focusing on whether students’ employment status was associated with learner participation. The results revealed learners’ longitudinal participation patterns and confirmed the impact of sustained engagement on course performance. The study also found that employed learners were more likely than their peers without jobs to become cramming learners with initially infrequent engagement in a course but investing intensive time at the end for certificates. We discuss practical implications for designing and facilitating large-scale professional degree and certificate programs in higher education institutions. Implications for practice or policy: Educators can apply MOOCs with a lower weekly workload and a slower pace to support employees’ professional development. Educators should develop professional learners’ interests in the course topic to avoid only cramming for the course certificates. Educators may consider longitudinal patterns of learner participation when assessing learner performance.

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 236-252
Author(s):  
Samaa Haniya ◽  
Luc Paquette

Understanding learner participation is essential to any learning environment to enhance teaching and learning, especially in large scale digital spaces, such as massive open online courses. However, there is a lack of research to fully capture the dynamic nature of massive open online courses and the different ways learners participate in these emerging massive e-learning ecologies. To fill in the research gap, this paper attempted to investigate the relationship between how learners choose to participate in a massive open online course, their initial motivation for learning, and the barriers they faced throughout the course. This was achieved through a combination of data-driven clustering approaches—to identify patterns of learner participation—and qualitative analysis of survey data—to better understand the learners’ motivation and the barriers they faced during the course. Through this study we show how, within the context of a Coursera massive open online course offered by the University of Illinois, learners with varied patterns of participation (Advanced, Balanced, Early, Limited, and Delayed Participation) reported similar motivations and barriers, but described differences in how their participation was impacted by those factors. These findings are significant to gain insights about learners’ needs which in turn serve as the basis to innovate more adaptive and personalized learning experiences and thus advance learning in these large scale environments.


Data in Brief ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 118-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waleed Al-Rahmi ◽  
Ahmed Aldraiweesh ◽  
Noraffandy Yahaya ◽  
Yusri Bin Kamin ◽  
Akram M. Zeki

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (05) ◽  
pp. 21-25
Author(s):  
Nurgul Dhoranovna Ghoranova ◽  
◽  
Gauhar Sarsenbaevna Borankulova ◽  

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulf Olsson

AbstractThe conditions for higher education teachers operating in a technology-enhanced education setting and an open educational context – such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – are different when compared to traditional teaching methods (e.g. in a lecture hall). This study investigates the grounds for 20 teachers at Swedish Higher education institutions to be involved in MOOC development projects. Six categories are found and described; including curiosity, merits, teaching development, flexibility, as well as the possibility to disseminate their research and expand their professional networks. Interviewees believed that the work was a viable way to strengthen their research portfolio, while also making a limited effort for teaching, enhancing the dissemination possibilities and strengthening their research networks.


Author(s):  
Triloki Pant ◽  
Swati Pant

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have evolved in past decade and become one of the prominent parts of the higher education system. The MOOCs provided a promising platform to aspirants who wanted to study further to either enhance their educational status or learn new technologies. With the evolution of MOOC, many platforms started to offer such courses, and many of them are not free as these courses need to register with some nominal fee. The role and need of libraries come at this point for MOOC courses as the courses are bundled with corresponding study material. The print library needs to assist e-library so that it may be compatible with the MOOCs and corresponding resources. The technological shift from print to e-library has a great impact on e-learning followed by MOOCs; however, the issue of MOOC libraries and resources is yet to be resolved to ensure the availability to all the users. The chapter deals with the need of library for MOOCs, its structure and technology shift from print library to e-library, along with the differentiation between e-learning and MOOCs.


Author(s):  
Clare Lade ◽  
Paul Strickland ◽  
Elspeth Frew ◽  
Paul Willard ◽  
Sandra Cherro Osorio ◽  
...  

This chapter examines the ways in which teaching and training in tourism, hospitality and events have evolved and adapted to the contemporary demands of academia and industry. It explores the development of education in tourism, hospitality and events, the contemporary factors which influence teaching and learning, and discusses the rise of Massive Open Online Courses with a particular focus on their potential application within tourism, hospitality and events curriculum. The chapter concludes by providing an overview of Open Badges and their importance in education. At the time of writing, the world has been confronted by the Covid-19 global pandemic which has caused great disruption at all levels. The impact of Covid-19 is briefly addressed in this chapter as the enforcement of social distancing measures has led to a significant increase globally in online education.


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