Interview presentation for the role of MOOC Developer for the Scottish Improvement Science Collaborating Centre, a multi-institution and -sector consortium led by the University of Dundee.

1. How will you ensure that
"massive" education is high
quality education?
Presentation to the University of West of
Scotland, Hamilton, 7th
January 2016
Fred Riley
www.fredriley.org.uk

2. Perspectives
●
This presentation takes the following
perspectives:
●
MOOC student
●
E-learning media developer
●
Learning Technologist

3. Quality
●
What is 'quality' in a MOOC context?
●
How can course quality be assessed?
●
no outcomes, as in 'normal' uni courses
●
'success' is subjective, down to the individual
●
participation metrics and analysis ('paradata')
●
student feedback and survey
●
Resource quality
●
high-quality peer-reviewed content
●
hiqh technical quality
●
both are required
●
When designing a course, read existing MOOC literature (see
References)

4. Resources
●
Develop in-house, from scratch, where possible
●
MOOC should be a distinct offering, not a recycle bin
●
Audio and video:
●
professionally shot and scripted
●
time-consuming to produce, esp video
– value from re-use in degree programmes
●
Graphics and animations
●
Open Source formats
●
accessible (text alternatives)
●
Quizzes and self-assessments
●
careful construction and meaningful feedback
●
Should be downloadable (text, AV clips) for offline use and revision

5. Open Educational Resources
(OER)
●
OER can be useful and economical in MOOCs
●
IF relevant OER exist AND
●
they're quality-controlled (teaching and technical) AND
●
open licences permit reuse AND
●
resources can be copied locally
●
Example: BBC footage* used in Climate Change MOOC
●
A collegiate gesture would be to make MOOC resources
available as OER for the community
* Not strictly OER, I know...

6. Community
●
Discussion and reflection important
●
MOOC should not be a solely passive experience
●
students need to feel part of a learning community, even if
they stay schtumm and just lurk
●
Facilitators useful to start and steer conversations
(and keep them on-topic!)
●
'Follow' and threading helpful when 000s of students
participating in fora
●
Social media feeds (eg Twitter) useful for mobile
students

7. Student experience
●
Interface preset mostly (totally?) by
FutureLearn environment
●
Getting started guides (FL has
produced a '
'crowdsourced guide to learning'')
●
Stage guidance - what should I do
now?

8. References
●
MOOCs @ Edinburgh 2013: Report 1 (Coursera)
●
MOOC report 2013 (University of London)
(Coursera)
●
MOOCs and Quality (QAA, 2015)
●
Experiences of MOOCs (HEA, 2015)
(FutureLearn)
●
MOOCs and beyond (Open Education Europa)

9. POSTSCRIPT
●
the quality of the content is of paramount importance. It doesn't matter how high quality a video clip is if its contents is
mediocre. Need high calibre, experienced staff providing up-to-date materials for delivery in a variety of formats.
●
as a new user I found it all a bit overwhelming, knowing there were several thousand people registered. I appreciated some
good practical advice - about not trying to read everything, just enough to be able to engage in discussion, and to follow some
people, including the course staff and people whose comments you liked - but had to search for it.
●
Also appreciated fairly explicit guidance about what was required at each stage. Some of this guidance directed you to get
stuck into the discussion - eg select two comments you found interesting and respond to them - and that helped you get
involved
●
Also liked the way you could access how you were progressing - how much you'd done, percentage remaining.
●
Really liked the variety of formats, text, video clips of talking heads, video clips of role play, multiple choice questions,
websites, articles etc
●
For a longer, accredited course presumably you'd be writing essays etc. Guidance on note taking would probably be useful,
so you could refer back to points more easily that having to trawl through the online stuff again
●
the opportunity for personalised feedback from the tutor is pretty useful, I received a couple of feedback comments and
questions which were useful. An experienced, encouraging and knowledgeable tutor is an important asset.
The following are comments from a first-time MOOC student of mature years on a
two-week course in Mental Health under the FutureLearn platform:

10. POSTSCRIPT
●
the quality of the content is of paramount importance. It doesn't matter how high quality a video clip is if its contents is
mediocre. Need high calibre, experienced staff providing up-to-date materials for delivery in a variety of formats.
●
as a new user I found it all a bit overwhelming, knowing there were several thousand people registered. I appreciated some
good practical advice - about not trying to read everything, just enough to be able to engage in discussion, and to follow some
people, including the course staff and people whose comments you liked - but had to search for it.
●
Also appreciated fairly explicit guidance about what was required at each stage. Some of this guidance directed you to get
stuck into the discussion - eg select two comments you found interesting and respond to them - and that helped you get
involved
●
Also liked the way you could access how you were progressing - how much you'd done, percentage remaining.
●
Really liked the variety of formats, text, video clips of talking heads, video clips of role play, multiple choice questions,
websites, articles etc
●
For a longer, accredited course presumably you'd be writing essays etc. Guidance on note taking would probably be useful,
so you could refer back to points more easily that having to trawl through the online stuff again
●
the opportunity for personalised feedback from the tutor is pretty useful, I received a couple of feedback comments and
questions which were useful. An experienced, encouraging and knowledgeable tutor is an important asset.
The following are comments from a first-time MOOC student of mature years on a
two-week course in Mental Health under the FutureLearn platform: