This document summarizes research into a public voting contest held in Germany to award funding for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The researchers analyzed the strategies used by applicants to maximize votes, including harnessing existing online communities and using arguments around open education, topic relevance, and national/institutional pride. They found the top applicants all had large supporting communities before voting began. While the contest intended for the public to decide, the researchers concluded cheating was common and applicants needed to actively campaign within their communities to succeed rather than just waiting for votes.

1. Discussing Public Voting in the
Web as a Measure to
Democratize Award Decisions
Martin Ebner, Sandra Schön, Alexander Stocker, Hannes Rothe und
Philipp Tsang

2. http://www.facebook.com/
martin.ebner
http://www.martinebner.at
https://twitter.com/#!/
mebner
http://
elearningblog.
tugraz.at

3. http://backchannel.cnc.io

4. „In the last decade public voting has
become quite popular as a concept. A
plethora of social media based platforms has
arisen, allowing an easy gathering of votes
and ratings by activating not only their
native users, but in fact the communities of
the different applicants to public voting
contests. The new rationale is that organizers
of public voting contests will draw a lot of
attention on their topics and at best they will
get a lot of data of potential futures
customers and platform visitors.“

5. „Public voting is intended to let the public
decide (i.e. vote) about the applicants’
submissions.“

6. „The big challenge of public voting in the Web
is mainly to overcome fraudulent activities
and cheating.“

7. „The big challenge of public voting in the Web
is mainly to overcome fraudulent activities
and cheating.“

8. http://moocfellowship.org

9. MOOC-Fellowship
„The “Stifterverband für die deutsche
Wissenschaft” announced in March 2013 the
foundation of ten MOOC production
fellowships each to be funded with 25.000€“
• The applicants must be a professor
• The proposed course must adress
students
• There will be a public voting and a
follow-up jury decision, which should use
the public voting as starting point.
Following requirements defined beforehand:

10. „In this reserach study we want to explore,
whether and how this public voting suc-
ceeded. We want to learn about the
participant’s strategies for maximizing their
votes and moreover if there were any hints
concerning cheating?“
Research Question

11. Overview of the result

12. Methodology
„In this research study we concentrated on
following-up the activities of the different
online-communities harnessed by the top-
placed applicants additionally to the
automatic tracking of Pickhardt“
• Which target group does the applicant address?
• Which arguments or incentives are used by the
applicant to maximize votes for their MOOC?
• What are the core social media and web
activities?
Following question should be answered:

13. https://www.facebook.com/sectiochirurgica
„Sectio Chirurgica“

14. https://www.facebook.com/mba.triesdorf
„International
Agrarmanagement“

15. http://www.twitter.com/policystudies
„Harry Potter and
Issues in International
Politics“

16. „L3T‘s MOOC“
http://futurezone.at/digitallife/15804-online-lehrkurs-
oesterreicher-hoffen-auf-preis.php

17. „Design 101
(or Design Basics)“
https://www.facebook.com/whoamigame

18. „Introduction to welfare
and health care“
https://www.facebook.com/FH.Diakonie

19. Following arguments motivated the online
communities to support the courses:
• “Support the development of Open Educational
Resources” (addressing the relevance of openness in education as
a social goal to attract voters)
•“Support an open course for a specific topic” or “Support the
development or the extension of a big media center” (addressing the
relevance of a particular topic to attract voters)
•“Support a project from your country, your town or your
university” (addressing the relevance for a country, town or
institution to attract liked minded persons)
•“Help us to win against competitor” or “Help us to defend our current
ranking” (addressing the need for support in a subjective way)
•“If you support us, you will get a reward” (addressing the desire for
prices)

20. „Applicants simply need a big supporting
community and all top-ranked course already
owned such a community before the start
of the voting. Nevertheless also the cheating
percentage was rather high and we can
confirm that this seems to be quite usual. If
you would like to be successful you have to
play the game, just waiting for public votes
will be to less“
Did the public decide?

21. Graz University of Technology
SOCIAL LEARNING
Computer and Information Services
Graz University of Technology
Martin Ebner
http://elearning.tugraz.at
http://elearningblog.tugraz.at
Slides available at: http://elearningblog.tugraz.at
mebner
http://backchannel.cnc.io