The document summarizes a study analyzing over 900 news articles about MOOCs from a European perspective. The key findings include: (1) Coverage peaked in 2012-2013 but is decreasing, with the most common topics being FutureLearn, MBA MOOCs, and the "MOOC revolution". (2) Ireland and France received specific attention. (3) Emerging topics included openSAP, MOOC research reports, MOOCs for training, and the MOOC market. The recommendations emphasize making the most of increased online education attention, and promising areas like the role of government and using MOOCs for workforce training.

1. MOOCs in the News:
A European Perspective
Vitomir Kovanović, Dragan Gašević, Srećko Joksimović,
The University of Edinburgh,United Kingdom
George Siemens
University of Texas at Arlington, USA
Marek Hatala
Simon Fraser University, Canada
v.kovanovic@ed.ac.uk
@vkovanovic
http://bit.ly/wow2015news http://vitomir.kovanovic.info

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“Disruptive Change”
“Tsunami is coming”
“Year of the MOOCs”
MOOCs have put a spotlight on online education:
We should make a best possible use of that!
MOOCs Revolution

3. Gartner Hype Cycle
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4. Gartner Hype Cycle: MOOC case
4
2015
2014
2012
2013

5. What public media reveals about moocs?
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● What media reports about MOOCs?
○ What is the hype about?
○ What is the social/economic impact of MOOCs?
○ Were to focus research efforts?
○ What are the opportunities/challenges?
○ What are the upcoming MOOC trends?
Kovanović, V., Joksimović, S., Gašević, D., Siemens, G., &
Hatala, M. (2015). What public media reveals about MOOCs: A
systematic analysis of news reports. British Journal of
Educational Technology, 46(3), 510–527. http://doi.org/10.
1111/bjet.12277

6. ● We identified 93 different MOOC-related topics
● Hype is passing
● Media coverage is decreasing
● Many business publications report about MOOCs
● News about MOOC providers among most reported
● Criticism focused on “failed revolution”
● Increasing coverage of worldwide adoption of MOOCs
○ (China, India, Australia, California)
● MBA MOOCS, Government-related MOOC topics, and use of
data & analytics among among rising trends
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What public media reveals about moocs:

7. 30 most prominent topics
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8. Observation 1: MOOC providers
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9. Observation 2: Regional adoption/use
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10. Observation 3: Rising trends
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11. MOOCs in the News:
A European Perspective
11

12. MOOCs in the News: A European
Perspective
● Basically, repeat the study with a focus on Europe-related
MOOC news
● We identified 915 articles about European MOOC happenings
● We discovered 43 different MOOC-related topics
● We followed the same approach as Kovanović et al. (2015a)
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13. How many articles were published?
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76
341
296
200

14. Who wrote about MOOCs?
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15. Frequency of different topics
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Topic change of coverage over time

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Top 3 topics

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Top 3 topics headlines
● FutureLearn
○ FutureLearn serves up first course online
○ Futurelearn reveals big plans to deliver Moocs on the move
● MBA MOOcs
○ MBAs and MFins: Think a management degree is out of your reach? Think again
○ Business schools face challenges of technological advances
● MOOC revolution
○ Get a Harvard ‘degree’ from your home
○ Welcome to the brave new world of Moocs

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Country-specific

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Country-specific headlines
● MOOCs in Ireland
○ Irish universities must learn the valuable lessons of an online age
○ Trinity goes digital with free online course; Six-week Massive Open Online Course in history ‘not a
substitute’ for university
● MOOCs in France
○ French Universities Go Online With Moocs
○ EdX to Work with French Ministry of Higher Education to Create National Online Learning Portal

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Rising topics

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Rising topics
● openSAP press releases
○ SAP Offers New, Free Online Classes on SAP(R) Business Suite powered by SAP HANA(R),
Sustainability and Rapid Deployment
○ SAP Encourages the Spread of Knowledge with Free Online Classes
● MOOC research reports
○ Investigators from Glasgow Caledonian University Report New Data on Open and Distance Learning
Higher Education; Reports from University of Oxford Add New Data to Findings in Higher Education (
● MOOCs for training
○ Mass online courses could help transform the future of training
○ Why promotion is just a click away;
● MOOC markets
○ Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Market 2015-2020: mEducation, Distance, Open & e-Learning in
Higher Education & Enterprise
○ Global Massive Open Online Courses Market 2014-2018: Key Vendors are Coursera, edX, Udacity and
Udemy

23. Summary
● Total of 915 articles identified and found 43 topics
● Reported primarily in educational venues, also in financial
● Three most prominent topics: FutureLearn, MBA MOOCs, and “MOOC revolution”
● Ireland & France frequently discussed
● openSAP, MOOC reports, MOOCs for training, MOOC market frequently discussed.
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24. Recommendations based on results
● Many calls for changes in education
● MOOCs attracted a lot of attention by the general media
● We should focus on issues identified in public discourse
● Make best possible use of the current momentum in online education
● Role of government & use of MOOCs for training seem very promising directions
● They are not a revolution but an evolution of long tradition of online education
● MOOCs are not dying out, but are not going to replace more “traditional” forms
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25. Interested in (Online) Education, Data, MOOCs?
Join us in Edinburgh on April 25-29 2016
25
ACM Learning@Scale (April 25-26 2016)
Learning Analytics & Knowledge (April 25-29 2016)
learningatscale.acm.org
lak16.solaresearch.org

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Thank you
v.kovanovic@ed.ac.uk
@vkovanovic
http://bit.ly/wow2015news http://vitomir.kovanovic.info