Instructional quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Margaryan, Anoush; Bianco, Manuela; Littlejohn, Allison

doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.08.005

Cited by 623 publications

(401 citation statements)

References 9 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…The insight that this analysis provides is important given that most MOOCs tend not to differentiate between learner groups (Margaryan, Bianco & Littlejohn, 2015). In the case of the Open Education MOOC 70 fee-paying students participated alongside approximately 250 no-fee learners participated in the course (i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The pedagogies employed in open online courses are receiving attention (Bali, 2014;Ebben & Murphy, 2014;Margaryan, Bianco & Littlejohn, 2015;Toven-Lindsey, Rhoads & Lazano, 2015) yet only a subset of MOOCs have been used in taught paid-for courses and an even smaller subset of these have been used in online distance paid-for courses such as the one presented in this paper. Recently Fischer (2014, p.5) has noted that a 'fundamental challenge is to envision and create symbiotic relationships between MOOCs and courses at universities' and certainly the way in which the relationship is conceptualised and described will determine the role and extent to which the MOOC as a teaching approach, as a platform and as a learning tool could be useful to 'conventional' university courses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Similarity and difference in fee-paying and no-fee learner expectations, interaction and reaction to learning in a massive open online course

Rossade

Whitelock

2016

Interactive Learning Environments

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Similarity and difference in fee-paying and no-fee learner expectations, interaction and reaction to learning in a massive open online course Journal ArticleHow to cite:Cross, Simon and Whitelock, Denise (2016 Similarity and difference in fee-paying and no-fee learner expectations, interaction and reaction to learning in a MOOC Simon Cross and Denise Whitelock Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UKThe new pedagogical opportunities that MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) learning environments offer for the teaching of fee-paying students on university accredited courses is of growing interest to educators. This paper presents a case study from a post-graduate taught course at the Open University, UK, where a MOOC performed the dual role of a core teaching vehicle for fee-paying students and also as a 'free-to-join' course for open learners. Analysis of survey data revealed differences between the two groups in respect to prior experience, knowledge, expectations and planned time commitment. The nature and experience of interaction was also examined. Fee-paying student feedback revealed four conditions in which MOOCs could be considered a pedagogic option for taught-course designers. These are: when there is a subject need; when used to achieve learning outcomes; when there is acknowledgement or compensation for the financial disparity; and when issues of transition and interaction are supported.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Similarity and difference in fee-paying and no-fee learner expectations, interaction and reaction to learning in a massive open online course

Rossade

Whitelock

2016

Interactive Learning Environments

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“…With regard to MOOCs, the paper rather only scratched the surface. But one may argue here that the "massification" of learning comes at a price, a rather low level of instructional quality [26] and learning scenarios which can often barely claim to address the higher levels of learning goals. The measurement of learning success may also change to a large extent, possibly providing a much more comprehensive and detailed picture of competencies of learners than ever before.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trends in e-Learning: Impacts of Social Mobile Technologies on Information Behavior, Formal Learning and the Educational Market

Griesbaum¹

2017

IJIET

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Abstract-Social and mobile technologies are catalysts for significant changes in e-learning. Their effects develop during the process of the diffusion and adaption of these technologies on different social levels: individual (micro level), organizational (meso level) and markets/society (macro level). This paper reports on the impacts of social and mobile technologies on learning related individual information behavior, formal teaching scenarios and the educational market as a whole. Thus, the reader obtains a holistic picture of technology based influences on learning.Index Terms-Social and mobile technologies, information behavior, formal learning, educational market.

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“…The term "feedback" has many connotations and is sometimes taken to refer specifically to personalized, expert-generated feedback (Margaryan, Bianco, & Littlejohn, 2015). In the current study, we adopt a broader definition of feedback that encompasses any information provided to students about their knowledge or their performance.…”

Section: Feedback Enhances Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explanations and Interactives Improve Subjective Experiences in Online Courseware

Thomas

Türkay

Parker

2017

IRRODL

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As online courses become more common, practitioners are in need of clear guidance on how to translate best educational practices into web-based instruction. Moreover, student engagement is a pressing concern in online courses, which often have high levels of dropout. Our goals in this work were to experimentally study routine instructional design choices and to measure the effects of these choices on students' subjective experiences (engagement, mind wandering, and interest) in addition to objective learning outcomes. Using randomized controlled trials, we studied the effect of varying instructional activities (namely, assessment and a step-through interactive) on participants' learning and subjective experiences in a lesson drawn from an online immunology course. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Results showed that participants were more likely to drop out when they were in conditions that included assessment. Moreover, assessment with minimal feedback (correct answers only) led to the lowest subjective ratings of any experimental condition. Some of the negative effects of assessment were mitigated by the addition of assessment explanations or a summary interactive. We found no differences between the experimental conditions in learning outcomes, but we did find differences between groups in the accuracy of score predictions. Finally, prior knowledge and self-rated confusion were predictors of post-test scores. Using student behavior data from the same online immunology course, we corroborated the importance of assessment explanations. Our results have a clear implication for course developers: the addition of explanations to assessment questions is a simple way to improve online courses.

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Instructional quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Cited by 623 publications

References 9 publications

Similarity and difference in fee-paying and no-fee learner expectations, interaction and reaction to learning in a massive open online course

Similarity and difference in fee-paying and no-fee learner expectations, interaction and reaction to learning in a massive open online course

Trends in e-Learning: Impacts of Social Mobile Technologies on Information Behavior, Formal Learning and the Educational Market

Explanations and Interactives Improve Subjective Experiences in Online Courseware

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