Massive open online courses: a review of usage and evaluation

The massive open online course MOOC has seen a dramatic rise in prominence over the last five years and is heralded by some as disrupting existing pedagogy and practices within the education sector, while others are far more sceptical about the impact of MOOCs. Numerous courses are now being offered on a number of different platforms, with participant numbers for some individual courses reaching hundreds of thousands. Expectations are high for what these courses can achieve in terms of opening access, widening participation and cost saving. In this paper we conduct a literature review to examine what is known about MOOCs both those following the original connectivist model and the more traditionally didactic variety and what indications there are that they can live up to such expectations. We discuss concerns arising from the review and identify issues including lack of evidence, absence of pedagogy, lack of support and unrealistic expectations particularly on beginner learners.

[1]  Theo Hug,et al.  Media, Knowledge & Education: Exploring new Spaces, Relations and Dynamics in Digital Media Ecologies , 2008 .

[2]  Jeffrey R. Young,et al.  Inside the Coursera Contract: How an Upstart Company Might Profit from Free Courses. , 2012 .

[3]  Simon Cross,et al.  Evaluation of the OLDS MOOC curriculum design course: participant perspectives, expectations and experiences , 2013 .

[4]  K. Pisutova,et al.  Open education , 2012, 2012 IEEE 10th International Conference on Emerging eLearning Technologies and Applications (ICETA).

[5]  J. Mackness,et al.  Connectivism and dimensions of individual experience , 2012 .

[6]  Christoph Meinel,et al.  Designing MOOCs for the Support of Multiple Learning Styles , 2013, EC-TEL.

[7]  Jeremy Knox.  The Forum, the Sardine Can and the Fake: contesting, adapting and practicing the Massive Open Online Course. , 2013 .

[8]  Moshe Y. Vardi.  Will MOOCs destroy academia? , 2012, CACM.

[9]  Rita Kop,et al.  The Challenges to Connectivist Learning on Open Online Networks: Learning Experiences during a Massive Open Online Course , 2011 .

[10]  Hélène Fournier,et al.  The value of learning analytics to networked learning on a personal learning environment , 2011, LAK.

[11]  George Siemens.  Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age , 2004 .

[12]  Rita Kop,et al.  Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past? , 2008 .

[13]  Sabina Jeschke,et al.  MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION - A NOVEL APPROACH TO TEACHING LARGE CLASSES , 2012 .

[14]  Marco Kalz,et al.  If MOOCS are the answer - did we ask the right questions? Implications for the design of large-scale open online courses , 2013 .

[15]  Chris Piech,et al.  Deconstructing disengagement: analyzing learner subpopulations in massive open online courses , 2013, LAK '13.

[16]  Mirjam Hauck,et al.  The Open Translation MOOC: creating online communities to transcend linguistic barriers , 2013 .

[17]  Roy Williams,et al.  Blogs and forums as communication and learning tools in a MOOC , 2010 .

[18]  Shirley Williams,et al.  MOOCs: A systematic study of the published literature 2008-2012 , 2013 .

[19]  Lisa Chamberlin,et al.  MOOCs: Massive Open Online Courses or Massive and Often Obtuse Courses? , 2011, ELERN.

[20]  Mordechai Ben-Ari.  MOOCs on introductory programming: a travelogue , 2013, INROADS.

[21]  Ryan Tracey,et al.  Much ado about MOOCs , 2014 .

[22]  M. Mitchell Waldrop,et al.  Massive Open Online Courses, aka MOOCs, Transform Higher Education and Science , 2014 .

[23]  C. Osvaldo Rodriguez,et al.  MOOCs and the AI-Stanford Like Courses: Two Successful and Distinct Course Formats for Massive Open Online Courses. , 2012 .

[24]  Cathy Sandeen.  Integrating MOOCS into Traditional Higher Education: The Emerging “MOOC 3.0” Era , 2013 .

[25]  Ron Martin,et al.  The world is not flat: putting globalization in its place , 2008 .

[26]  Stephen P. Balfour,et al.  Assessing Writing in MOOCs: Automated Essay Scoring and Calibrated Peer Review™. , 2013 .

[27]  Pierre Dillenbourg,et al.  MOOCs are More Social than You Believe , 2013 .

[28]  T. Anderson,et al.  Three Generations of Distance Education Pedagogy. , 2010 .

[29]  Doug Clow,et al.  MOOCs and the funnel of participation , 2013, LAK '13.

[30]  K. Masters.  A Brief Guide To Understanding MOOCs , 2011 .

[31]  Nuno Bordalo Pacheco,et al.  MOOC: The first experience in a Portuguese Institute of Higher Education , 2013 .

[32]  Annabel Kirschner,et al.  A Pioneer in Online Education Tries a MOOC. , 2012 .

[33]  Gloria Creed-Dikeogu,et al.  Are You MOOC-ing Yet? A Review for Academic Libraries , 2013 .

[34]  Yvonne Belanger,et al.  Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach Duke University’s First MOOC , 2013 .

[35]  Roy Williams,et al.  The ideals and reality of participating in a MOOC , 2010 .

[36]  C. Osvaldo Rodriguez,et al.  Merging MOOC and mLearning for Increased Learner Interactions , 2012, Int. J. Mob. Blended Learn..

[37]  Jaakko Kurhila,et al.  Multi-faceted support for MOOC in programming , 2012, SIGITE '12.

[38]  Carlos M. Del Rio,et al.  What You Need to Know , 2012 .

[39]  J. Daniel,et al.  Making Sense of MOOCs : Musings in a Maze of Myth , Paradox and Possibility Author : , 2013 .

[40]  David Kernohan.  Content that talks back: what does the MOOC explosion mean for content management? , 2013 .

[41]  Diane J Skiba.  Disruption in higher education: massively open online courses (MOOCs). , 2012, Nursing education perspectives.

[42]  M. Caballero,et al.  The Initial State of Students Taking an Introductory Physics MOOC , 2013, 1307.2533.

[43]  Steve Cooper,et al.  Reflections on Stanford's MOOCs , 2013, CACM.

[44]  Osvaldo Rodriguez.  The concept of openness behind c and x-MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) , 2013 .

[45]  Rebecca J. Hogue,et al.  Using mLearning and MOOCs to understand chaos, emergence, and complexity in education , 2011 .

[46]  Marc Clarà,et al.  Learning online: massive open online courses (MOOCs), connectivism, and cultural psychology , 2013 .

[47]  Gráinne Conole,et al.  MOOCs as disruptive technologies: strategies for enhancing the learner experience and quality of MOOCs Los MOOC como tecnologías disruptivas: estrategias para mejorar la experiencia de aprendizaje y la calidad de los MOOC. , 2016 .

[48]  George Siemens,et al.  The Open Course: Through the Open Door--Open Courses as Research, Learning, and Engagement , 2010 .

[49]  Fiona Carroll,et al.  Cloud Computing and Creativity: Learning on a Massive Open Online Course , 2011 .

[50]  Sanjit A. Seshia,et al.  Automating exercise generation: a step towards meeting the MOOC challenge for embedded systems , 2012, WESE '12.

[51]  David E. Pritchard,et al.  Studying Learning in the Worldwide Classroom Research into edX's First MOOC. , 2013 .

[52]  Marion Waite,et al.  Learning in a Small, Task-Oriented, Connectivist MOOC: Pedagogical Issues and Implications for Higher Education. , 2013 .

[53]  Jane Sinclair,et al.  What (Use) is a MOOC? , 2013, LTEC.

[54]  Taylor Walsh,et al.  Unlocking the Gates: How and Why Leading Universities Are Opening Up Access to Their Courses , 2010 .

[55]  Helene Fournier,et al.  A pedagogy of abundance or a pedagogy to support human beings? Participant support on massive open online courses , 2011 .

[56]  Antonio Fini,et al.  The Technological Dimension of a Massive Open Online Course: The Case of the CCK08 Course Tools , 2009 .