IRRODL Volume 15, Number 2

Abstract

Editorial -Volume 15, Issue Number 2 Nn OnlineCourses Rory McGreal Co-Editor, IRRODLThis spring edition of IRRODL begins with several articles describing open educational resources (OER) followed by some financial considerations and a MOOC investigation.These papers will also be included in the OERKnowledgeCloud, which is supported by the UNESCO/Commonwealth of Learning/International Council for Open and Distance Education Chairs in three countries. (I am one of them.) For those readers, who are interested in OER and MOOCs, I would recommend that they visit this repository of more than 600 research articles and reports on issues of relevance to researchers in the field. These are followed by papers on student interaction and support as well as synchronous and asynchronous learning. The later articles investigate blended learning, educational research, and the mobile cloud. MOOCs can be seen as a development emerging from the OER movement. In his blog mining analysis of MOOCs, Chen highlights some of the challenges that need to be addressed to ensure sustainability. In contrast, Marty, focuses on monetizing distance education, with fieldwork analyzing the cultural evolution of a French educational institution from a "public good" mandate to a commercial orientation.The next topic includes the themes of interactivity and student support. Wang et al.provide us with a framework for analyzing interaction within a connectivist paradigm with four levels (operation, wayfinding, sensemaking, and innovation). Barberà et al. This edition is rounded off with two articles. Teräs and Herrington, using an iterative design and rapid prototyping, show how this helps to "refine design principles" for an authentic elearning programme. Wang et al. provide us with a case study of mobile learning using cloud computing in a higher education institution.The notes sections include a critique of MOOCs by V. Dolan followed by a book review by T. Anderson. Mass Customization of Education by an AbstractOne of the claims the OER movement makes is that availability of (open) digital learning materials improves the quality of education. The promise is the ability to offer educational programs that take into account specific demands of the learner. The question is how to reach a situation where a customized demand can be met using OER with acceptable quality against acceptable costs. This situation resembles mass customization as is common in industry for several decades now. Techniques from an industry where an end product is assembled with the demands of the customer as a starting point can be translated to the field of education where courses and learning paths through a curriculum are assembled using a mixture of open and closed learning materials and learning services offered by an institution. Advanced IT support for both the modeling of the learning materials and services and a configurator to be used by a learner are necessary conditions for this approach.

To draw or not to draw? Examining the necessity of problem diagrams using massive open online course experiments

“…Finally, a common concern among researchers is that while MOOCs provide large sample size, the demographics of MOOC students can be quite different from the average college or high-school students, in terms of both age and educational background [9]. As a result, it is not clear to what extent results obtained from MOOC experiments (or experiments conducted in any online learning environment) provide valuable information for improving traditional classroom teaching.…”

“…Recent developments in online educational technology, especially massive open online courses (MOOCs), provide an opportunity to address the limitations of previous studies [8][9][10]. The large number of participants in our MOOC ensures adequate statistics for detecting small differences or looking at a subsection of students, even with moderate response rate.…”