scholarly journals Challenges in the Creation, Development and Implementation of MOOCs: Web Science Course at the University of Southampton

Comunicar ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (44) ◽  
pp. 37-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria-del-Mar Sánchez-Vera ◽  
Manuel León-Urrutia ◽  
Hugh Davis

Massive is one of the distinctive features of MOOCs which differentiate them from other e-learning experiences. This massiveness entails certain possibilities, but also some challenges that must be taken into consideration when designing and implementing a Massive Open Online Course, in relation to context, work progress, learning activities, assessment, and feedback. This document presents an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the massive aspect of MOOCs, and specifically it narrates the experience of creating a MOOC on Web Science, developed at the University of Southampton (United Kingdom) using the new FutureLearn platform, in autumn 2013. In this document, the importance of Web Science as an emerging field is analyzed and its origins explored. The experience gained from the decisions and the work progress developed for the creation and implementation of a specific MOOC is also shared here. The final section of the paper analyses some data from the MOOC in Web Science, including the participation index, the comments and interactions of some participants, tools used, and the organization of facilitation. Challenges involved in running a MOOC related to course design, platform use and course facilitation are also discussed. El carácter masivo es una de las peculiaridades de los MOOC, que lo diferencian de otro tipo de experiencias de aprendizaje en red. Este hecho configura una serie de posibilidades, pero también una serie de retos que hay que tener en cuenta a la hora de diseñar e implementar un curso masivo en red, en relación, por ejemplo, a los contenidos, el proceso de trabajo, las actividades, la evaluación y el feed-back. Este trabajo presenta un análisis de las ventajas y desventajas del carácter masivo de los MOOC y concretamente describe la experiencia de creación de un MOOC sobre Web Science desarrollada en la Universidad de Southampton (Reino Unido) en la plataforma FutureLearn durante el otoño de 2013. Se analiza la importancia del estudio de la rama de Web Science y cómo se originó esta experiencia. También describen las decisiones y el proceso de trabajo desarrollado para la creación e implementación del MOOC en concreto. Se termina este trabajo analizando alguno de los datos que se han obtenido, como el índice de participación (ligeramente elevado respecto a la media de los MOOC), los comentarios de los participantes, la manera de gestionar la facilitación del curso y algunos de los retos que nos encontramos a la hora de gestionar un MOOC, que se relacionan con el diseño del curso, la plataforma que se utiliza y cómo se organiza la facilitación del curso.

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (S1) ◽  
pp. 55-56
Author(s):  
Nicole L. O’Dell ◽  
Eric Fredericksen ◽  
Sarah Peyre

OBJECTIVES/SPECIFIC AIMS: Translational Science 101 aims to: (1) Orient the public to the field of clinical and translational science; (2) Provide a brief overview of each phase of translation (T0-T4); (3) Provide real-world examples of clinical and translational researchers and research projects that have directly impacted patients; (4) Provide learners with information on how they can become involved in clinical and translational science through many different avenues (study volunteer, student, faculty member, or study coordinator). METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: The primary audience for Translational Science 101 is the general public and media outlets who are interested in learning more about clinical and translational science and how this research is improving population health. The University of Rochester Clinical and Translational Science Institute created the course in order inform the public about the field of clinical and translational science, orient the public to the types of research that fall under the translational science umbrella, and demonstrate how translational research impacts populations. The Coursera Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform was selected to host the course in order promote the greatest level of exposure and also to expand the educational reach of the UR-CTSI to new external audiences. The course was constructed from scratch utilizing the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework, an approach that is often utilized to guide the design and construction of asynchronous online coursework. CoI highlights the elements of social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence as key factors impacting the educational experience learners have when enrolled in an online course. Discussion boards, embedded quizzes, and end of module quizzes were integrated in to the course design to promote learner engagement, collaborative learning, and interactions among learners. The “storytelling” instructional strategy is the backbone of the Introduction to Clinical Science modules, with various researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center explaining their lines of research and how the research impacts patients and communities. Educational research has shown that there are many benefits to including storytelling in instruction (Green, 2004; Geanellos, 1996), including: (1) Stories create interest: The narrative structure increases learner interest and engagement as they are drawn in to a good story. (2) Stories create a more personal link between the learner and the content: Storytelling allows exploration of shared lived experiences without the demands of practice and allows students to make connections between the shared experiences and their own previous experiences and knowledge. (3) Stories provide a structure for remembering course materials: The inclusion of stories facilitates remembering because it is easier to remember a story rather than a list of disparate facts, and stories evoke vivid mental images which are an excellent cue for recall. (4) Stories are a familiar and accessible form of sharing information: Storytelling aids in overall learner understanding as it is a nonthreatening way of sharing information. Storytelling can also enhance course discussions as students feel more at ease discussing a story than discussing abstract or new concepts that they are still in the process of mastering. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Introduction to Translational Science was launched on October 16, 2017, and is automatically scheduled to begin a new session every 3 weeks. To date the course has reported the following analytics: (1) 2308 learners have visited the course page, (a)476 learners have enrolled in the course; (b) 244 learners are currently active in the course; (c) 11 learners have completed all of the requirements of the course. (2)Learners by Continent, (a) North America 31%; (b) Asia 30%; (c) Europe 23%; (d) Africa 9%;(e) South America 5%; (f) Oceania 2%. (2) Learners by Country: Learners have come from 84 different countries from around the world. The 15 highest enrollment numbers are: (a) USA 25%, (b) India 11%, (c) Egypt 3.7%, (d) United Kingdom 3.4%, (e) Mexico 3.2%, (f) Brazil 2.8%, (g) China 2.8%, (h) Saudi Arabia 2.2%, (i) Spain 2.2%, (j) Germany 1.7%, (k) Russian Federation 1.7%, (l) Malaysia 1.5%, (m) Turkey 1.5%, (n) Italy 1.5%, and (o) Canada 1.5%. (3) Gender: 48% women and 50% men. (4) Age: (a) 13–17: 0.72%, (b) 18–24: 19.6%, (c) 25–34: 44%, (d) 35–44: 14.4%, (e) 45–54: 8.6%, (f) 55–64: 7.2%, (g) 65+: 3.6%. (5)Highest Education Level o Doctorate Degree: 17%; (a) Professional School Degree: 14%; (b) Master’s Degree: 31%; (c) Bachelor’s Degree: 27%; (d) Associate’s Degree: 2.3%; (e) Some College But No Degree: 4.5%; (f) High School Diploma: 3.8%; (g) Some High School: 0.75%. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform offers new, exciting opportunities for CTSA institutions to create courses and trainings that are accessible by learners all over the world. This greatly expands the educational reach that the CTSA education programs can have, moving beyond hub-focused or consortium-focused education to a much broader audience. The expansion of educational reach can promote increased visibility of the CTSA program, encourage collaborations amongst researchers at different institutions, and also inform the public about clinical and translational science, potentially fostering advancement opportunities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Zsolt Námesztovszki ◽  
Dorottya Balázs P. ◽  
Cintia Kovács ◽  
Lenke Major ◽  
Dijana Karuović

Manapság egyre több szó esik az időtől és helytől független tanulásról, amely elektronikus eszközök segítségével valósul meg. Ezen eszközök szervezett és összefogott megjelenítését biztosítják a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) típusú kurzusok. Ezek a kurzusok egyre nagyobb népszerűségnek örvendenek az oktatók és a tanulók körében is, és egyre több ilyen struktúrájú képzés jelenik meg. Az utóbbi években magyar nyelvű képzések is egyre gyakrabban érhetők el, azonban ezek működése (az empirikus adatok tükrében) már kevésbé ismert. Ezt a kört bővíti ez a tanulmány, amely a tanulói aktivitás intenzitását vizsgálja a videómegtekintések, a fórumaktivitások és a tesztek kitöltésének ideje alapján három, saját készítésű MOOC felületén. --- Tracing learners' activity patterns in 3 MOOC trainings Nowadays, more and more researchers and teachers are talking about e-learning, which makes education independent of time and place. The MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) provides the organized and coordinated look of these e-learning tools. These courses are becoming more and more popular among instructors and students alike, and there are a number of these sorts of structured courses. In recent years there have also been a great number of courses available in Hungarian too, but their working process is less well-known (in light of empirical data). This study examines the intensity of the student activities during the video-material, the forum activities and the time of completion of the tests, on the basis of three self-made MOOCs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 33348
Author(s):  
Kétina Allen da Silva Timboni ◽  
Andrea De Araújo Rupert ◽  
Margarete Schlatter

Curso Autoformativo de Português para Intercâmbio (CAPI) is a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) that aims to prepare students for academic exchange programs. The didactic materials of CAPI are being designed based on a perspective of language use (Clark, 2000) and discourse genres (Bakhtin, 2011). This paper analyzes the course contents in order to examine how this theoretical construct was put into practice in the selection of themes and texts and in the design of the pedagogical tasks. The materials are coherent with the theoretical perspective in that they foster the learning of Portuguese in use and to use through the interaction with oral and written texts in social practices in which students might participate in the university and the city of destination, thus preparing them for their stay. The addition of explicit reflection on possible implications of interlocutors’ relations to the use of linguistic-discursive and cultural repertoires is suggested.


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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-82
Author(s):  
I. Engeness ◽  
M. Nohr

This study examines how participants engage in learning in the Pedagogical Information and Communication Technology (ICTPED) Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) aimed to enhance Norwegian pre- and in-service teachers’ professional digital competence. The study also provides an insight into how participants’ engagement in learning in the ICTPED MOOC may have enhanced their transformative digital agency. Analyses of participants’ engagement in learning draw on P.Y. Galperin’s pedagogical theory. The data comprised 310 participants’ responses to the questionnaire administered to all pre- and in-service teachers engaged in the ICTPED MOOC in 2016—2019. Mixed methods were applied for data analyses by providing quantitative and qualitative evidence about the participants’ engagement in the course. Findings reveal that the majority of participants engaged in learning by reading the textual information embedded in the course. In doing so, they followed the sequential progression informed by the course design. Other participants engaged in learning by watching the videos and listening to the audio files embedded in the course as well as by attempting the assignments and other activities. By following these approaches, the participants created their individual learning trajectories and therefore may have enhanced their digital agency and affected the epistemic practices in the course.


10.28945/3072 ◽  
2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Primoz Luksic ◽  
Boris Horvat ◽  
Andrej Bauer ◽  
Tomaz Pisanski

This paper presents the practical issues involved in introducing e-leaming for the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics (FMF) at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. It begins with a short history of e-learning at FMF and is followed by a discussion about the choice of the open source software (Moodle, svn, wiki platform) as the foundation for the web based learning; its advantages and disadvantages. The focus is on materials that enhance classroom learning, conform to learning standards, and at the same time address the needs of the end users - the students. In the end, the results of a survey about the students' attitudes towards e-learning are presented; in general and specific to the e-learning environment at FMF.


Author(s):  
Diana Nancy Martínez García

Introducción: El aprendizaje electrónico e-learning, incorporó la conectividad a través del Internet acercando el conocimiento y el desarrollo académico por medio de los espacios de aprendizaje virtuales. Del tradicional e-learning a la masificación de los cursos abiertos Massive Open Online Course, se ha revolucionado el mundo educativo en función de la oferta de formación académica abierta y de calidad.Objetivo: Evaluar las competencias digitales de los docentes de la Carrera de Enfermería de la Universidad Técnica de Ambato.Métodos: Se realizó un estudio observacional, descriptivo y retrospectivo con el objetivo de conocer las competencias digitales de los docentes de la Carrera de Enfermería. La población estuvo formada por 30 docentes, a los que se les aplicó un instrumento de evaluación para conocer las competencias digitales que poseían.Resultados: Los docentes estuvieron bien familiarizados con el uso de la Internet (n=19; 63%), y el uso de software educativos (n=8; 27%). El 37% de los docentes utilizó el Internet para el desarrollo de sus clases, el 33% lo utilizó a menudo, mientras que el 2,7% lo utilizó en determinadas ocasiones.Conclusiones: Las competencias digitales de los docentes estuvieron en un nivel medio de pericia, los docentes conocieron y manejaron las herramientas informáticas que integraron a su práctica docente, no obstante se evidenció la necesidad de acompañamiento por parte de personal especializado en el área de tecnologías de la información y la comunicación. 


Author(s):  
Sanja Bauk ◽  
Michael Kopp ◽  
Zoran Avramović

Abstract: This paper considers beginning steps in introducing e-learning into seafarers’ education, as additional mode of acquiring knowledge at the Faculty of Maritime Studies which is a part of the University of Montenegro. Related activities are the result of the enthusiasm of few professors and they are partly supported by a small, initial project of bilateral scientific and technological cooperation between Austria and Montenegro. The paper is conceived in a way that it considers following issues: (a) a brief discussion of some current shortages in maritime education and training in general; (b) possibilities of getting advantages through introducing e-learning into this respectable field of education; (c) some advantages and disadvantages of Moodle which has been used as a technological platform for introducing e-learning in the analyzed case; (d) results of the surveys conducted among involved students, teachers, and professionals in the field of employing new media techniques into the knowledge transfer, and (e) some conclusion remarks regarding possibilities of optimal combining maritime and virtual education.


2004 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Peruski ◽  
Punya Mishra

In this study, we followed three faculty members’ experiences with designing and teaching online courses for the first time. In order to complete the activity, the faculty members had to work collaboratively with others across the university. Activity theory provided a framework within which to study faculty members’ collaborative activities with members of different activity systems that had different goals, tools, divisions of labor and accountabilities. In concordance with activity theory, such differences led to contradictions, disturbances, and transformations in thinking and work activities. The results of the study have implications for individuals and systems undertaking technology integration in teaching.DOI: 10.1080/0968776042000211520


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