Workshop - Open online courses

Open online courses
a workshop
Michael Rowe
Department of Physiotherapy
University of the Western Cape

How is “online” different?
●
Configuration defines behaviour
●
Default configuration in a physical classroom:
rows of desks, chairs, space at the front, four
walls, whiteboard, projector
●
Default in an open online course? How you
decide to configure the space determines what
you can do with it.
●
Difficult to change the default in the classroom;
online allows us to do better through intentional
design.

Course objectives
By the end of this workshop, participants should
be able to:
●
Identify some of the major concepts related to
open online courses.
●
Design a short course, from conception through
to implementation.
●
Address some of the misconceptions around
open online courses.

Online workspaces
●
Twitter stream. Share your thoughts, questions and
comments during the session, using the conference
hashtag #etinedconf.
●
Google Drive. This is a public document for
collaborative note taking during the session. We
encourage you to work here, either as individuals
or in groups, in order to get a feeling for what it is
like to work online in a public space. Go to
http://ht.ly/Rycom

Introduction
This workshop will be run (partially) as an open line
course. By participating in an online space during
the workshop, you will not only learn about these
kinds of courses but will also get a sense of what it
is like to be a part of one.
What is a course?
What do open online courses offer that make them
potentially valuable?

Introduction
Activity
●
Who are you?
●
Why did you choose to attend this course?
●
What did you hope to learn?
●
How can others from the workshop get in touch
with you later?

Introduction
Resources
●
How Do Learners Experience Open Online
Learning?
http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/how-do-
learners-experience-open-online-learning/
●
Learner Experiences with MOOCs and Open
Online Learning https://hybrid-
pedagogy.github.io/LearnerExperiencesInMOOCs/
●
Designing online learning for the 21st century
http://www.tonybates.ca/2012/04/24/designing-
online-learning-for-the-21st-century/

What is a MOOC?
●
Massive: attractive because they can scale
●
Open: access and licensing
●
Online: blending use of materials also common
●
Course: materials organised into a course
The UK Open University, founded in 1969, has
offered inexpensive and flexible learning
opportunities to people who were not able to
attend a traditional institution.

xMOOC vs cMOOC
xMOOC cMOOC
Scalability of provision Massive Community and connections
Open access – Restricted license Open Open access and license
Individual learning in a single
platform
Online Networked learning across multiple
platforms and services
Acquire a curriculum of knowledge
and skills
Course Develop shared practices, knowledge
and understanding

MOOCs
Activity (make notes in Drive)
Spend a few minutes discussing the relative
advantages and disadvantages of MOOCs in the
context of higher education.
●
Does it have a place?
●
What might it be good for?
●
Can you think of any courses that could benefit
from being implemented as an open online
course?

MOOCs
Resources
●
Bates, T. (2014). Comparing xMOOCs and cMOOCs: philosophy and practice.
http://www.tonybates.ca/2014/10/13/comparing-xmoocs-and-cmoocs-philosophy-and-
practice/
●
Caulfield, M. (2013). xMOOC communities should learn from cMOOCs.
https://www.educause.edu/blogs/mcaulfield/xmooc-communities-should-learn-cmoocs
●
Downes, S. (2015). Becoming MOOC. http://halfanhour.blogspot.ca/2015/02/becoming-
mooc.html
●
Mackness, J. (2013). cMOOCs and xMOOCs: Key differences.
https://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/cmoocs-and-xmoocs-key-differences/
●
Mohamed, A., Yousef, F., Chatti, M. A., & Schroeder, U. (2014). MOOCs: A Review of the State-
of-the-Art. CSEDU 2014 - 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education, 9–
20. https://oerknowledgecloud.org/sites/oerknowledgecloud.org/files/MOOCs%20-%20A
%20Review%20of%20the%20State-of-the-Art.pdf
●
Morrison, D. (2013). The Ultimate Student Guide to xMOOCs and cMOOCs.
http://moocnewsandreviews.com/ultimate-guide-to-xmoocs-and-cmoocso/
●
The maturing of the MOOC: literature review of massive open online courses and other forms
of online distance learning. (2013). London.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/240193/13-
1173-maturing-of-the-mooc.pdf

Audience
Who is your audience?
●
Undergraduates, postgraduates, professionals
●
Language
●
Culture
●
Geography
What demands will the course place on them?

Course design
Choosing a framework (authentic learning)
●
Real-world relevance: they match real-world tasks ito how participants must
think & behave
●
Ill-defined: there are multiple interpretations of both the problem and the
solution
●
Are complex and must be explored over a sustained period of time i.e. days,
weeks or months
●
Opportunities to examine the task from different perspectives, using a variety of
resources
●
Opportunities to collaborate that are integral to the task
●
Opportunities to reflect on choices
●
Integrated & applied across different subject areas, enable diverse roles &
expertise
●
Seamlessly integrated with assessment
●
Result in a finished product, rather than as preparation for something else
●
Allow for competing solutions and diversity of outcome

Course design
Course activities / participant interaction
●
What will your participants need to do (informs
choice of platform)?
Read | Write | Watch | Respond | Reflect | Comment
●
Are you bringing an existing course into online
space, or starting from scratch?
●
Avoid simply porting content from analogue to
digital.

Course design
Choosing a platform
●
Don't reinvent the wheel. Open source software
has given us many tools.
●
The web is the platform.
●
“Open” means that you can aggregate sources
from around the web, tag them and share with
participants.

Course design
Content
●
Will you use existing material or start from scratch? Has
anyone else offered a similar course? How was their
course licensed? Do you have permission to reuse some of
it?
●
Are materials available in a digital format? Do you have
access to all of the materials? Can students access from
off campus?
●
Will the materials be accessible on all devices e.g. flash
video?What will your content look like on a small screen?
●
Will you create the course so that components are
available offline? Are you disadvantaging students who are
not connected all the time?

Course design
Who will be on the design team? What strengths do
they have?
What benefits does this approach bring? Why open?
What content will you use? How is it licensed? Is it
available off campus? What formats is it in? Will you
have to find new sources? Will you have to create them?
What T&L frameworks will you use? Will you need to
recruit others with more expertise in pedagogy?
How will you encourage interaction among participants?
What affordances does your online space have that
would facilitate interaction?

Course design
Resources
●
Bates, T. (2012). Designing online learning for the 21st century.
http://www.tonybates.ca/2012/04/24/designing-online-learning-for-the-
21st-century/
●
Czerniewicz, L., Deacon, A., Small, J., & Walji, S. (2014). Developing world
MOOCs: A curriculum view of the MOOC landscape. Journal of Global
Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies, 2(3), 122–139.
http://joglep.com/files/7614/0622/4917/2._Developing_world_MOOCs.pdf
●
Reeves, T. C., Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (2002). Authentic activities and online
learning. HERDSA (pp. 562-567). http://www.herdsa.org.au/wp-
content/uploads/conference/2002/papers/Reeves.pdf
●
Stommel, J. (2013). How to Build an Ethical Online Course.
http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/how-to-build-an-ethical-online-
course/
●
Veletsianos, G. (2014). Success, personal learning plans, and multiple pathways
in open courses. http://www.veletsianos.com/2014/08/17/multiple-
pathways-personal-leanring-plans-moocs/

Implementation
●
Running your course will be time consuming, complex
and should probably involve a team.
●
A lot of time is spent communicating with participants:
email individual, email group, forum, chat, blog
comments, video.
●
Communication activities: leading, moderating,
facilitating, supporting, trouble shooting,
administration.
●
Managing information overload.

Implementation
●
Who would be in your implementation team and
what would their roles be?
●
What advice would you give participants
regarding information overload?
●
What advice would you give facilitators
regarding information overload?

Implementation
Resources
●
Ignatia de Waard, Inge, 2014, MOOC YourSelf - Set up your own
MOOC for Business, Non-Profits, and Informal Communities.
http://www.amazon.com/MOOC-YourSelf-Business-Non-Profits-
Communities-ebook/dp/B00CDVZ2AW
●
Kop, R., Fournier, H., & Sui Fai Mak, J. (2014). A Pedagogy of
Abundance or a Pedagogy to Support Human Beings? Participant
Support on Massive Open Online Courses. International Review
of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 12(7), 1–11.
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1041/2025
●
Ross, J., Sinclair, C., Knox, J., Bayne, S., & Macleod, H. (2014).
Teacher Experiences and Academic Identity: The Missing
Components of MOOC Pedagogy. MERLOT Journal of Online
Learning and Teaching, 10(1), 57–69.
http://jolt.merlot.org/vol10no1/ross_0314.pdf

Assessment
Consider the following list of competencies that open online
courses develop:
●
Design research questions, conduct searches, aggregate
results, synthesize and summarise findings, and re-share in
new formats
●
Connect with others in meaningful ways
●
Negotiate uncertainty and diversity
●
Navigate complex topics and online spaces with minimal
structured pathways
●
Development of digital and critical literacies
●
Self-directed and lifelong learning skills

Assessment
Discuss some of the options available for assessment in your
courses, taking into account the following:
●
What are the learning outcomes for your course? Should they be
assessed? Can they be assessed?
●
Is the course for credit? Are participants required to take the
course? What purpose does the assessment serve?
●
Will you provide feedback to participants during the course? How
much time do you have available for feedback?
●
What participant activities will you use as indicators of
competence?
●
How will you scale the assessment? Will you use peer
assessment? How else could you scale the assessment of larger
groups of participants.

Assessment
Resources
●
Davis, J.E. (2015). The Flaws of Online Course Testing. DML
Central. http://dmlcentral.net/blog/jade-e-davis/flaws-online-
course-testing
●
Kulkarni, C. E., Socher, R., Bernstein, M. S., & Klemmer, S. R.
(2014). Scaling short-answer grading by combining peer
assessment with algorithmic scoring.
https://hci.stanford.edu/publications/2014/PeerStudio/las200
8-kulkarni-ScalingShort-answerGrading.pdf
●
Suen, H. K. (2014). Peer Assessment for Massive Open Online
Courses ( MOOCs). International Review of Research in Open
and Distance Learning, 15(3), 312–327.
http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1680/290
4

Feedback and evaluation
●
How are you going to get feedback from the course
participants? Google Forms or Surveymonkey provide free,
easy to use platforms to set up simple questionnaires that
allow a variety of responses.
●
How long will the evaluation be? The more in-depth your
questions are, the richer the responses are likely to be. Or, the
fewer people will complete the form.
●
Which questions will you ask? Which questions will you omit?
What is the purpose of each question?
●
Are you thinking of conducting research on your courses (note:
you should be)? Have you received ethics clearance? Is the
project registered? Have you informed participants that their
responses may be published? Do you have their consent?

Sustainability
Suggestions for a sustainable course:
●
Integrate with existing teaching so costs are already covered.
●
Promote related conventional courses, sell related text
books.
●
General adverts, course sponsors and/or funding agencies.
●
Sell the participant data to potential employers, recruitment
agencies.
●
Charge students (for extra resources, related apps,
supporting textbooks, extra support, exclusive tutorials,
assessment, certification, credits).
●
License the course to other educators/companies.

Sustainability
3rd
party providers
edX Coursera Udacity
Certification Certification
Secure assessment
Employee recruitment
Applicant screening
Tutoring and marking
Enterprise training
Sponsorship
Fees
Certification
Employee recruitment
Job match services
Sponsorship
There are concerns about how some MOOC
providers use participant data. What do you
think about this and would this influence your
choice of platform?

Sustainability
Outline a sustainability strategy for your course, taking
into account the following:
●
How much is needed for one implementation of the
course?
●
Will it cost the same every year?
●
Where will the funding come from?
●
Will you need to write a proposal?
●
Is this realistic?

Critical perspective
MOOCs, as popularized by Udacity and Coursera,
have done more harm to the cause of open
education than anything else in the history of the
movement. They have inflicted this harm by
promoting and popularizing an abjectly
impoverished understanding of the word “open.”
David Wiley (2014)

Critical perspective (2)
There is a dire need for some healthy skepticism
among educators about the idea that MOOCs are
a wonderful means to go global in order to do
good. For our desire to educate the whole world
from the convenience of our laptops to be
translated into any meaningful effect, we need
more research about how students...from different
academic, cultural, social, and national
backgrounds fare in such spaces.
Norman (2013)

Develop a set of arguments for why open online
courses should NOT be included in your course. If you
ever decide to run your own open online course, you
need to be prepared to defend your choices.
●
Spend a few minutes coming up with reasons for why
an open online course may not be a good idea for
your students.
●
Then, spend a few minutes coming up with solutions
for those obstacles.

Resources
●
Dolan, V. L. (2014). Massive Online Obsessive Compulsion: What are They
Saying Out There about the Latest Phenomenon in Higher Education?
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 15(2), 268–
281. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1553/2849
●
Norman, C. (2013). Scaling Education: The Absurd Case of the MOOC.
http://censemaking.com/2013/07/19/scaling-education-the-absurd-case-of-
the-mooc/
●
Popenici, S. (2014). MOOCs – A Tsunami of Promises.
http://popenici.com/2014/04/22/moocs2014/
●
Sharma, G. (2013). A MOOC Delusion: Why Visions to Educate the World Are
Absurd. http://chronicle.com/blogs/worldwise/a-mooc-delusion-why-visions-
to-educate-the-world-are-absurd/32599
●
Wiley, D. (2014). The MOOC Misstep and the Open Education Infrastructure.
http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3557

Thank you
@michael_rowe
mrowe.co.za/blog
mrowe@uwc.ac.za

Workshop - Open online courses

More Related Content

What's hot

Similar to Workshop - Open online courses

More from Michael Rowe

Recently uploaded

Workshop - Open online courses