OUTLINING PARTICIPATION IN THE FIRST MOOC OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE AEGEAN: A CASE STUDY

Stefanos Giasiranis, Alivizos Sofos

Abstract


Twelve years after the advent of MOOCs, the University of the Aegean (Greece) implemented its first MOOC on “Violence and bullying in schools”, in which about 2,000 people showed interest in attending. Eventually, 1309 people started it and 1050 (80.21%) completed it successfully, achieving high performance. The present work, which is part of the doctoral research of the first researcher, outlines the participation of the learners in the program and the obstacles they encountered during it while identifying the reasons for its high completion rate with high performance. The results showed that mainly the quality of the instructional material, the instructional design of the program, and its organization, as well as the timely support provided to learners, contributed significantly to the successful completion of the program achieving high performance. These findings can be considered by future MOOC program designers, in order to design and implement programs that meet the requirements and facilitate the participation of those who attend.

Δώδεκα χρόνια μετά την εμφάνιση των MOOCs, το Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου υλοποίησε το πρώτο του MOOC με θέμα την Ενδοσχολική βία και τον εκφοβισμό, στο οποίο εκδήλωσαν ενδιαφέρον για να το παρακολουθήσουν περίπου 2000 άτομα. Τελικά, το ξεκίνησαν 1309 άτομα και το ολοκλήρωσαν επιτυχώς 1050 (80,21%), πετυχαίνοντας υψηλές επιδόσεις. Η παρούσα εργασία, που αποτελεί τμήμα της διδακτορικής έρευνας του πρώτου ερευνητή, σκιαγραφεί τη συμμετοχή των εκπαιδευομένων στο πρόγραμμα και τα εμπόδια που αντιμετώπισαν κατά τη διάρκειά του, ενώ εντοπίζει τους λόγους του υψηλού ποσοστού ολοκλήρωσης του με υψηλές επιδόσεις. Τα αποτελέσματα έδειξαν ότι κυρίως η ποιότητα του εκπαιδευτικού υλικού, ο εκπαιδευτικός σχεδιασμός του προγράμματος και η οργάνωσή του, καθώς και η έγκαιρη υποστήριξη που παρεχόταν στους εκπαιδευόμενους, συνέβαλαν σημαντικά στην επίτευξη των συγκεκριμένων αποτελεσμάτων. Τα ευρήματα αυτά, μπορούν να ληφθούν υπόψη από τους σχεδιαστές μελλοντικών προγραμμάτων MOOCs, ώστε να σχεδιάζουν και να υλοποιούν προγράμματα που θα ικανοποιούν τις απαιτήσεις και θα διευκολύνουν τη συμμετοχή, όσων τα παρακολουθούν.

Article visualizations:

Hit counter


Keywords


MOOCs, distance education, self-regulation, SRL, instructional design / MOOCs, εξ αποστάσεως εκπαίδευση, αυτορρύθμιση, SRL, εκπαιδευτικός σχεδιασμός

Full Text:

PDF

References


Allione, G., & Stein, R. M. (2016). Mass attrition: An analysis of drop out from principles of microeconomics MOOC. The Journal of Economic Education, 47(2), 174-186. DOI: 10.1080/00220485.2016.1146096

Alraimi, K. M., Zo, H., & Ciganek, A. P. (2015). Understanding the MOOCs continuance: The role of openness and reputation. Computers & Education, 80, 28-38. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2014.08.006

Amnueypornsakul, B., Bhat, S., & Chinprutthiwong, P. (2014, October). Predicting attrition along the way: the UIUC model. In Proceedings of the EMNLP 2014 Workshop on Analysis of Large Scale Social Interaction in MOOCs (pp. 55-59).

Anderson, A., Huttenlocher, D., Kleinberg, J., & Leskovec, J. (2014, April). Engaging with massive online courses. In Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on World wide web (pp. 687-698). ACM.

Beaven, T., Codreanu, T., & Creuzé, A. (2014). Motivation in a language MOOC: issues for course designers. Language MOOCs: Providing Learning, Transcending Boundaries. Berlin: De Gruyter Open, 48-66.

Belanger, Y., & Thornton, J. (2013). Bioelectricity: A quantitative approach Duke University’s first MOOC.

Breslow, L., Pritchard, D. E., DeBoer, J., Stump, G. S., Ho, A. D., & Seaton, D. T. (2013). Studying learning in the worldwide classroom: Research into edX's first MOOC. Research & Practice in Assessment, 8.

Cassidy, D., Breakwell, N., & Bailey, J. (2014). Keeping them clicking: Promoting student engagement in MOOC design. The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 6(2), 1-15.

Castano-Munoz, J., Kalz, M., Kreijns, K., & Punie, Y. (2016). Influence of employer support for professional development on MOOCs enrolment and completion: Results from a cross-course survey. Research Track (pp. 251-263)

Cisel, M. (2014). Analyzing completion rates in the first French xMOOC. Proceedings of the European MOOC Stakeholder Summit, 26.

Clow, D. (2013, April). MOOCs and the funnel of participation. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 185-189). ACM.

Cross, S. (2013). Evaluation of the OLDS MOOC curriculum design course: participant perspectives, expectations and experiences. OLDS MOOC Project, Milton Keynes

Cunningham, J. A., Bitter, G., Barber, R., & Douglas, I. (2017). Using Traces of Self-Regulated Learning in a Self-Paced Mathematics MOOC to Predict Student Success.

Davis, D., Chen, G., Jivet, I., Hauff, C., & Houben, G. J. (2016). Encouraging Metacognition & Self-Regulation in MOOCs through Increased Learner Feedback. In LAL@ LAK (pp. 17-22).

Davis, D., Jivet, I., Kizilcec, R. F., Chen, G., Hauff, C., & Houben, G. J. (2017, March). Follow the successful crowd: raising MOOC completion rates through social comparison at scale. In LAK (pp. 454-463). DOI: 10.1145/3027385.3027411

De Barba, P. G., Kennedy, G. E., & Ainley, M. D. (2016). The role of students’ motivation and participation in predicting performance in a MOOC. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 32(3), 218–231. doi:10.1111/jcal.12130

Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2015). The systematic design of instruction (8th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Egloffstein, M., & Ifenthaler, D. (2017). Employee perspectives on MOOCs for workplace learning. TechTrends, 61(1), 65.

Engle, D., Mankoff, C., & Carbrey, J. (2015). Coursera’s introductory human physiology course: Factors that characterize successful completion of a MOOC. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(2).

Evans, B. J., Baker, R. B., & Dee, T. S. (2016). Persistence patterns in massive open online courses (MOOCs). The Journal of Higher Education, 87(2), 206-242.

Ferdig, R. E., Pytash, K. E., Merchant, W., & Nigh, J. (2014). Findings and reflections from the K-12 teaching in the 21st century MOOC. Recuperado el, 1.

Fini, A. (2009). The technological dimension of a massive open online course: The case of the CCK08 course tools. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 10(5).

Fournier, H., Kop, R., & Durand, G. (2014). Challenges to research in MOOCs. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(1), 1.

Gamage, D., Fernando, S., & Perera, I. (2015, August). Factors leading to an effective MOOC from participants’ perspective. In Ubi-Media Computing (UMEDIA), 2015 8th International Conference on (pp. 230-235). IEEE.

García, B. J., Tenorio, G. C., & Ramírez, M. S. (2015). Self-motivation challenges for student involvement in the Open Educational Movement with MOOC. RUSC. Universities and Knowledge Society Journal, 12(1). pp. 91-103. doi:10.7238/rusc.v12i1.2185

Goldberg, L. R., Bell, E., King, C., O’Mara, C., McInerney, F., Robinson, A., & Vickers, J. (2015). Relationship between participants’ level of education and engagement in their completion of the Understanding Dementia Massive Open Online Course. BMC medical education, 15(1), 60. DOI: 10.1186/s12909-015-0344-z

Grainger, B. (2013). Massive open online course (MOOC) report. London, UK: University of London International Programmes. Retrieved from http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk

Greene, J. A., Oswald, C. A., & Pomerantz, J. (2015). Predictors of retention and achievement in a massive open online course. American Educational Research Journal, 52(5), 925-955.

Guo, P. J., & Reinecke, K. (2014, March). Demographic differences in how students navigate through MOOCs. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 21-30). ACM.

Guo, P. J., Kim, J., & Rubin, R. (2014, March). How video production affects student engagement: An empirical study of MOOC videos. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 41-50). ACM.

Gütl, C., Rizzardini, R. H., Chang, V., & Morales, M. (2014, September). Attrition in MOOC: Lessons learned from drop-out students. In International Workshop on Learning Technology for Education in Cloud (pp. 37-48). Springer, Cham.

Hadi, S. M., & Rawson, R. (2016). Driving learner engagement and completion within MOOCs: a case for structured learning support. Proceedings of the European Stakeholder Summit on experiences and best practices in and around MOOCs (EMOOCS 2016), 81.

Haug, S., Wodzicki, K., Cress, U., & Moskaliuk, J. (2014). Self-regulated learning in MOOCs: Do open badges and certificates of attendance motivate learners to invest more. U., & CD (Eds.), EMOOCs, 66-72.

Hew, K. F. (2016). Promoting engagement in online courses: What strategies can we learn from three highly rated MOOCS. British Journal of Educational Technology, 47(2), 320-341. doi:10.1111/bjet.12235

Ho, A., Reich, J., Nesterko, S., Seaton, D., Mullaney, T., Waldo, J., & Chuang, I. (2014). HarvardX and MITx: The first year of open online courses, fall 2012-summer 2013. Ho, AD, Reich, J., Nesterko, S., Seaton, DT, Mullaney, T., Waldo, J., & Chuang, I.(2014). HarvardX and MITx: The first year of open online courses (HarvardX and MITx Working Paper No. 1).

Hone, K. S., & El Said, G. R. (2016). Exploring the factors affecting MOOC retention: A survey study. Computers & Education, 98, 157-168. DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2016.03.016

Hood, N., Littlejohn, A., & Milligan, C. (2015). Context counts: How learners' contexts influence learning in a MOOC. Computers & Education, 91, 83-91.

Hoy, M. B. (2014). MOOCs 101: an introduction to massive open online courses. Medical reference services quarterly, 33(1), 85-91.

Huang, B., & Hew, K. F. T. (2016). Measuring learners’ motivation level in massive open online courses. International Journal of Information and Education Technology. DOI: 10.7763/IJIET.2016.V6.788

Jivet, I. (2016) The Learning Tracker. A Learner Dashboard that Encourages Self-regulation in MOOC Learners (Master thesis, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands). Retrieved from http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f6c2ede4-a4e3-4ff0-b681-b0d057854e3c

Jordan, K. (2013). MOOC Completion Rates: The Data, Retrieved 27th July 2017, available at: http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

Jordan, K. (2014). Initial trends in enrolment and completion of massive open online courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 15(1).

Jordan, K. (2015). Massive open online course completion rates revisited: Assessment, length and attrition. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(3) pp. 341–358.

Karnouskos, S., & Holmlund, M. (2014). Impact of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on Employee Competencies and Innovation. Blekinge Institute of Technology

Kennedy, G., Coffrin, C., De Barba, P., & Corrin, L. (2015, March). Predicting success: how learners' prior knowledge, skills and activities predict MOOC performance. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 136-140). ACM. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2723576.2723593

Khalil, H., & Ebner, M. (2013, June). “How satisfied are you with your MOOC?”-A Research Study on Interaction in Huge Online Courses. In EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology (pp. 830-839). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). doi:10.17265/2160-6579/2015.12.003

Kim, J., Guo, P. J., Seaton, D. T., Mitros, P., Gajos, K. Z., & Miller, R. C. (2014, March). Understanding in-video dropouts and interaction peaks in online lecture videos. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 31-40). ACM. doi: 10.1145/2556325.2566239

Kizilcec, R. F., & Cohen, G. L. (2017). Eight-minute self-regulation intervention raises educational attainment at scale in individualist but not collectivist cultures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 201611898. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1611898114

Kizilcec, R. F., & Halawa, S. (2015, March). Attrition and achievement gaps in online learning. In Proceedings of the Second (2015) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale (pp. 57-66). ACM.

Koedinger, K. R., Kim, J., Jia, J. Z., McLaughlin, E. A., & Bier, N. L. (2015, March). Learning is not a spectator sport: Doing is better than watching for learning from a MOOC. In Proceedings of the Second (2015) ACM Conference on Learning@ Scale (pp. 111-120). ACM.

Kop, R., Fournier, H., & Mak, J. S. F. (2011). A pedagogy of abundance or a pedagogy to support human beings? Participant support on massive open online courses. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 12(7), 74-93.

Koutsodimou, K., & Tzimogiannis, A. (2016). Mass Open Courses and teacher professional development: design issues and study of participants' views. In T. A. Mikropoulos, N. Papachristos, A. Tsiara, P. Chalki (eds.), Proceedings of the 10th Pan-Hellenic and International Conference “ICT in Education”, Ioannina: HAICTE. 23-25 September 2016. ISSN 2529-0916, ISBN 978-960-88359-8-6, 52-62.

Li, N., Kidziński, Ł., Jermann, P., & Dillenbourg, P. (2015). MOOC video interaction patterns: What do they tell us?. In Design for teaching and learning in a networked world (pp. 197-210). Springer, Cham.

Maldonado, J. J., Palta, R., Vázquez, J., Bermeo, J. L., Pérez-Sanagustín, M., & Munoz-Gama, J. (2016, October). Exploring differences in how learners navigate in MOOCs based on self-regulated learning and learning styles: A process mining approach. In Computing Conference (CLEI), 2016 XLII Latin American (pp. 1-12). IEEE.

Morris, N. P., Hotchkiss, S., & Swinnerton, B. (2015). Can demographic information predict MOOC learner outcomes. Proceedings of the EMOOC Stakeholder Summit, 199-207.

Nawrot, I., & Doucet, A. (2014, April). Building engagement for MOOC students: introducing support for time management on online learning platforms. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on World Wide Web (pp. 1077-1082). ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/2567948.2580054

Oosterhof, A. (2010). Educational Assessment: From Theory to Practice (Edited by K. Kasiatis). Athens: Ellin

Park, Y., Jung, I., & Reeves, T. C. (2015). Learning from MOOCs: a qualitative case study from the learners’ perspectives. Educational Media International, 52(2), 72-87. doi:10.1080/09523987.2015.1053286

Perna, L. W., Ruby, A., Boruch, R. F., Wang, N., Scull, J., Ahmad, S., & Evans, C. (2014). Moving through MOOCs: Understanding the progression of users in massive open online courses. Educational Researcher, 43(9), 421-432. DOI: 10.3102/0013189X14562423

Pursel, B. K., Zhang, L., Jablokow, K. W., Choi, G. W., & Velegol, D. (2016). Understanding MOOC students: motivations and behaviours indicative of MOOC completion. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 32(3), 202-217. doi: 10.1111/jcal.12131.

Ramesh, A., Goldwasser, D., Huang, B,́ Daume III, H., & Getoor, L. (2014). Understanding MOOC discussion forums using seeded LDA. In Proceedings of the 9th ACL Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications, 2014. pp. 28-33

Santos, J. L., Klerkx, J., Duval, E., Gago, D., & Rodríguez, L. (2014, March). Success, activity and drop-outs in MOOCs an exploratory study on the UNED COMA courses. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 98-102). ACM.

Schulze, A. S. (2014). Massive open online courses (MOOCs) and completion rates: are self-directed adult learners the most successful at MOOCs? (Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University).

Shapiro, H. B., Lee, C. H., Roth, N. E. W., Li, K., Çetinkaya-Rundel, M., & Canelas, D. A. (2017). Understanding the massive open online course (MOOC) student experience: An examination of attitudes, motivations, and barriers. Computers & Education, 110, 35-50. DOI: 10.1016/j.compedu.2017.03.003

Skrypnyk, O., de Vries, P., & Hennis, T. (2015). Reconsidering retention in MOOCs: The relevance of formal assessment and pedagogy. eMOOCs 2015-Proceedings of the Third European MOOCs Stakeholder Summit, 166-172.

Sofos, A., Kostas, A., Paraschou, B. (2015). Online Distance Learning from Theory to Practice. Greek Academic Electronic Textbooks and Aids. Available at: http://hdl.handle.net/11419/182

Stein, R., & Allione, G. (2014). Mass attrition: An analysis of drop out from a Principles of Microeconomics MOOC. Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.

Tawfik, A. A., Reeves, T. D., Stich, A. E., Gill, A., Hong, C., McDade, J., ... & Giabbanelli, P. J. (2017). The nature and level of learner–learner interaction in a chemistry massive open online course (MOOC). Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 1-21. DOI:10.1007/s12528-017-9135-3

Thille, C., Schneider, E., Kizilcec, R. F., Piech, C., Halawa, S. A., & Greene, D. K. (2014). The future of data-enriched assessment. Research & Practice in Assessment, 9.

Tomkin, J. H., & Charlevoix, D. (2014, March). Do professors matter?: Using an a/b test to evaluate the impact of instructor involvement on MOOC student outcomes. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 71-78). ACM. doi: 10.1145/2556325.2566245

Tseng, S. F., Tsao, Y. W., Yu, L. C., Chan, C. L., & Lai, K. R. (2016). Who will pass? Analyzing learner behaviors in MOOCs. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 11(1), 8.

Veletsianos, G., Reich, J., & Pasquini, L. A. (2016). The Life Between Big Data Log Events: Learners’ Strategies to Overcome Challenges in MOOCs. AERA Open, 2(3). DOI: 10.1177/2332858416657002

Whitehill, J., Williams, J., Lopez, G., Coleman, C., & Reich, J. (2015). Beyond Prediction: First Steps toward Automatic Intervention in MOOC Student Stopout. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (pp. 171-178).

Whitmer, J., Schiorring, E., & James, P. (2014, March). Patterns of persistence: what engages students in a remedial English writing MOOC?. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Learning Analytics and Knowledge (pp. 279-280). ACM. doi: 10.1145/2567574.2567601

Wilkowski, J., Deutsch, A., & Russell, D. M. (2014, March). Student skill and goal achievement in the mapping with google MOOC. In Proceedings of the first ACM conference on Learning@ scale conference (pp. 3-10). ACM. doi:10.1145/2556325.2566240

Wong, J. S., Pursel, B., Divinsky, A., & Jansen, B. J. (2015, March). An analysis of mooc discussion forum interactions from the most active users. In International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, and Prediction (pp. 452-457). Springer, Cham.

Xiong, Y., Li, H., Kornhaber, M. L., Suen, H. K., Pursel, B., & Goins, D. D. (2015). Examining the relations among student motivation, engagement, and retention in a MOOC: A structural equation modeling approach. Global Education Review, 2(3).

Yuan, L. & Powell, S. (2013). MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education. Glasgow: JISC CETIS.

Zheng, S., Rosson, M. B., Shih, P. C., & Carroll, J. M. (2015). Understanding Student Motivation, Behaviors and Perceptions in MOOCs. Proceedings of the 18th ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing - CSCW ’15, (pp. 1882-1895). https://doi.org/10.1145/2675133.2675217.

Zutshi, S., O'Hare, S., & Rodafinos, A. (2013). Experiences in MOOCs: The perspective of students. American Journal of Distance Education, 27(4), 218-227. DOI:10.1080/08923647.2013.838067.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejoe.v5i2.3358

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright © 2016-2023. European Journal of Open Education and E-learning Studies (ISSN 2501-9120) is a registered trademark of Open Access Publishing GroupAll rights reserved.

This journal is a serial publication uniquely identified by an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) serial number certificate issued by Romanian National Library (Biblioteca Nationala a Romaniei). All the research works are uniquely identified by a CrossRef DOI digital object identifier supplied by indexing and repository platforms.

All the research works published on this journal are meeting the Open Access Publishing requirements and can be freely accessed, shared, modified, distributed and used in educational, commercial and non-commercial purposes under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).