The messy realities of learning and
participation in open courses
Dr. George Veletsianos
Canada Research Chair in Innovative Learning & Technology
Associate Professor
School of Education and Technology
Royal Roads University
Canada's Collaboration for Online Higher Education and Research Conference (COHERE)
October 24, 2013

School of Education and Technology
http://tinyurl.com/RRUMALAT

What does this have to do with
Open Learning & Open Participation?
Key takeaway #1:
• No single narrative can describe what
happens in open learning environments

Key takeaways #2 to #4
• The MOOC phenomenon is a symptom of
chronic failures/issues
• We lack a complete understanding of what
happens “on the ground” with open
learning/participation
• The realities of open learning/participation
are messy.
• We need more research on experiences &
practices associated with openness

The MOOC
• My experience with MOOCs
• What do MOOCs represent?
• MOOCs are not just courses
• I prefer the terms “MOOC phenomenon”
 because MOOCs represent something
broader than massive open online courses.
• What is that something?

The MOOC phenomenon as a
symptom
• MOOCs are “the billion $$ solution to a problem we
haven’t identified yet.” (Siemens, 2013)
– A historically accurate perspective.
• “The history of our field is replete with bandwagons,
new technologies that were the temporal
panaceas... Bandwagons are solutions in search of
problems” (Choi & Reeves, 2013).
• “[C]omputer-based ITS have been solutions in
search of problems. This has resulted in a variety of
misguided or unnecessary lessons that do little more
than pay homage to the latest technological
trend” (Hooper & Hannafin, 1991).

If the MOOC phenomenon is not a
solution, what is it?
• A “symptom of a larger problem” (Marquis,
2013)
• A “symptom of the HE crisis” (Kendzior, 2013)
• A “symptom of the absence of educational
ambition among politicians” (Newfield, 2013)
• “A symptom of change” (Stewart, 2013)
• A symptom of “the seismic shifts that are
taking place in our profession” (Taylor, 2012)
• A symptom of “society’s degraded approach
to knowledge” (Leddy, 2013)
• “One symptom of openness” (Batson, 2013)

If the MOOC phenomenon is not a
solution, what is it?
• I propose that the MOOC phenomenon is a
symptom of:
– Economic pressures
– Political pressures
– Privatization pressures
– Educators’ failures to create their own solutions
for educational problems
– Lack of impact of educational technology
research on learning design
– Lack of impact of educational technology
scholarship (to share our findings, to make
meaningful contributions to practice).

Yet, the MOOC phenomenon has
made some contributions
• Elevated the profile of online education
• Raised the profile of free (perhaps open?)
education
• Elevated the profile of teaching (Collier,
2013)
• Exerted pressure on HE institutions to
innovate
• Provided impetus for more collaboration
within HE (e.g., at the institutional level)

Hence…
The MOOC phenomenon

What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• Caveat
– Open courses vs. “Open” courses vs. Open
learning/participation
• Learners report
– benefiting from open course participation
(Hilton, Graham, Rich, & Wiley, 2010)
– Facing a number of obstacles (Mackness et al,
2011)

What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• Institutional MOOCs demonstrate low
completion rates, <10% (Jordan, 2013)
• Big Data & Learning Analytics research
question traditional understanding of
“completion”
– Learners exhibit varied participation behaviors
(e.g., auditing, completing, disengaging,
sampling) (Kizilcec, Piech, & Schneider, 2013)
– Koller et al. (2013) argue that participants may
not necessarily intent to complete a course

What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• How does the research on scholars’ online participation inform
research on open online learning?
– Networked Participatory Scholarship: “scholars’ use of participatory
technologies and online social networks to share, reflect upon, critique,
improve, validate, and further their scholarship” (Veletsianos & Kimmons,
2012)
– What do scholars do on Twitter? (Veletsianos, 2012)
– What activities and practices do scholars enact online and what does
that tell us about identity (Veletsianos, 2013)
– What tensions arise when participating in online networks (Veletsianos &
Kimmons, 2013; Kimmons & Veletsianos, under review)

What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• We lack an evidence-based understanding of
experiences with all open forms of learning/
scholarship
• Majority of the research on open online learning
conducted to date has been survey-based, focused
on learner behavior, and guided by tracking online
behaviors
• Reports from institutional offices are helpful, but we
need in-depth studies

What happens “on the ground” with
open learning/participation?
• Need multiple methodologies:
• Macro (Kizilcec, Piech, Schneider, 2013)
• Auditing, Completing, Disengaging, Sampling
• Micro (Ota, 2013)
• “[I was] left with a partial sense of
accomplishment and feelings of hollowness and
incompleteness.”
• In the frenzy surrounding the rise of “edtech” and
MOOCs, it seems that student voices and
experiences are rarely considered.

What is it like to participate in open online learning?
Veletsianos, G. (2013). Learner Experiences with MOOCs and Open Online Learning. Hybrid Pedagogy. Retrieved on Sept
29, 2013 from http://learnerexperiences.hybridpedagogy.com.

Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

Results
• Learners
– questioned institutional/instructor commitment,
– identified a need for improved instructional design,
– praised responsive MOOC instructors,
– criticized instructors who were not visible,
– valued course flexibility and denounced course rigidity,
– appreciated the opportunities for open learning.

Summary
• The realities of open online learning are different
from the hopes of open online learning.
• We only have small pieces of an incomplete
mosaic of students’ learning experiences with
open online learning.

Where do we go from here?

Design experiences – not products.
What do we want open learning
experiences to look like?
What systems can we design to realize
these experiences?

Thank you!
www.veletsianos.com
www.veletsianos.com/publications
@veletsianos on Twitter
veletsianos@gmail.com