In massive open online courses (MOOCs), low barriers to registration attract large numbers of students with diverse interests and backgrounds, and student use of course content is asynchronous and unconstrained. The authors argue that MOOC data are not only plentiful and different in kind but require reconceptualization-new educational variables or different interpretations of existing variables. The authors illustrate this by demonstrating the inadequacy or insufficiency of conventional interpretations of four variables for quantitative analysis and reporting: enrollment, participation, curriculum, and achievement. Drawing from 230 million clicks from 154,763 registrants for a prototypical MOOC offering in 2012, the authors present new approaches to describing and understanding user behavior in this emerging educational context.

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Digital technologies have become central to higher education teaching and learning practices. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of students’ experiences within a resource-rich and digitally-driven pedagogical system in a second year engineering dynamics course. Course instructors created an Active, Blended, and Collaborative (ABC) learning environment providing students with multiple learning resources. The resources included a hybrid Lecturebook (a combination of textbook and workbook), an online discussion forum, a large repository of online videos, and a tutorial room staffed by teaching assistants. A thematic analysis of semi-structured interview transcripts characterized how students perceived the utility of the available resources, especially given the complex integration of pedagogies and resources available in person and across the technology platform. The findings revealed that students valued the blended structure because it provided them with both immediate and asynchronous access to the learning resources. Students used the resources to help them solve homework problems, study for exams, and improve their conceptual understanding in the course. The students reported engaging with their peers to receive feedback constantly throughout out the course. The results highlight how the learning resources were aligned with each other and in-class pedagogies, and they worked in tandem to support students’ academic success. The results from this paper contribute to the literature on student perceptions of technology-mediated learning environments in core engineering courses.

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In this paper, we studied the implementation of a course on global history as a blended section of a massive open online course (MOOC) and the learning challenges faced by the students in three crisis contexts: Azraq refugee camp (Jordan), Kakuma refugee camp (Kenya), and Amman urban refugee center (Jordan). The results showed that poor Internet connection in the camps severely impacted both students’ and instructors’ experience of the course. In the context of chronic Internet connectivity issues, the instructors had difficulties assessing their students’ needs and challenges. The results also showed that in light of these intermittent connection problems, the collaborative learning environment helped students navigate the challenges of a blended course. Also, the onsite visit by the online tutors and the face-to-face interactions that resulted from it had a noticeable impact on the human dynamics of the course by allowing instructors to provide targeted solutions to students’ problems as well as by building rapport between the students and the instructional team.

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