DesigningaMassive Open Online Course (MOOC)
As a research-led, civically engaged University offering world-class teaching we have decided to develop a series of massive open online courses. MOOCs aim to make quality education freely available to anyone with an internet connection throughout the world.
As MOOCs are such a new form of provision for the University, the design process should be undertaken by a steering group rather than be the sole responsibility of the Lead Educator. You should seek input from appropriate professional services colleagues (e.g. Learning and Teaching Development Managers, Faculty Librarian, Learning and Teaching Technology Team, Outreach and Access Team). Course ideas and structures will be subject to the approval of the MOOCs Operational Group. In order to get an appreciation for the format, we recommend that colleagues undertake a MOOC as a learner before embarking on teaching a MOOC (
In common with traditional learning and teaching, it is important to begin designing your MOOC curriculum as a learning journey; a series of learning experiences which together result in learners learning what you intend them to learn.
Aims
These should be written from a learner’s perspective. As a learner, why should I join you for this course?
Think about what level of study you are designing and where it may lead on to.
Intended Learning Outcomes
When learners successfully complete this course, what do you intend that theywill have learned? What will they now be able to do that they couldn’t do previously? Will their attitudes have changed?
The learning outcome should be preceded by a statement such as: “Learners will be able to…”. It should then contain a verb referring to the thinking (cognitive) process (i.e. remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, create) and an object which is the type of knowledge learners should acquire. Examples of questions can be found at: A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Hunter, R. (2009)
Course Plan
This is the course contentand should be designed to effectively meet the learning outcomes. It should be purposeful, lead on to the next level or next step of learning, be up to date and reflect current research.
Content which is interesting but not necessary should not be included in the core course as it may well distract and confuse learners – this should be included as additional/extension activity.
Learning and Teaching Methods
This is how learners will interact with the content. The learning and teaching methods for MOOCs are different to traditional learning and teaching. FutureLearn are in the process of developing more learning and teaching activities but currently they are limited to videos (5-10 minutes), articles (500-800 words), learner discussions,multiple choice quizzes/tests (formative or summative), peer reviewed short essays and exercise steps. There are many ways to creatively use these step types to engage learners. Recently used activities include generating a map, creative writing, asking learners to perform a playful mission, kitchen experiments, participating in Google+ Hangouts On Air and many more.
Due to the high number of learners MOOCs cannot offer personalised academic support and guidance for learners.
FutureLearn offer a comprehensive view of the platform functionality in their Content Creation Guidelines which should be read in conjunction with this document.
Assessment
It has been shown that learners need to receive feedback in order to learn effectively. In traditional teaching feedback can be provided through tutor, peer or self assessment. This can be summative or formative. Such feedback illustrates to a learner where their learning has (or hasn’t yet) been successful.
In contrast, the assessment methods available in MOOCs are very limited, the main form of feedback is currently multiple choice questions and peer reviewed short essays. Global feedback from a tutor can be given via email or short video e.g. following completion of a discussion task.
The Learning Journey
A MOOC needs to be a mixture of high quality content, engaging activities and meaningful interactions. Will course activities follow the same pattern each week? Are the activity timings realistic and do they fit within the overall learning hours of the course?Each week should offer:
Guidance and support(e.g. trailer video, text introductions, taster materials, educator pages, contents list)-Does the trailer accurately represent the course in terms of level, prior knowledge requirements, skills level, time commitment, content and learner activities? While we cannot offer personalised support and guidance, how will learners be guided and supported through each week? What materials and tools will be used?
Content and experience(e.g. slide presentations, video, images and diagrams, text content, links,interactive objects)- What topics, themes and learning outcomes will be covered? How will they be presented and how will learners engage with them?
Communication and collaboration(e.g. question and answers, themed discussions, polls) - How will learners be encouraged to communicate and collaborate with each other in the platform? What materials and tools will be used? Will staff be used to support this activity? How will you ensure that discussions are brought back together rather than fragmenting into ‘too much noise’ (a common complaint amongst MOOC learners)?
Reflection and demonstration(e.g. reflective note taking, peer assessment, multiple choice questions)- How will learners reflect on and monitor their progress against their personal aims and the course outcomes? What is the assessment strategy?
Materials should be offered that are ‘extension’ or ‘additional’ to the core path through the learning to engage and stretch learners who have more time to devote to the course of who are experts in the field. Anything that is core should be freely available, on the FutureLearn platform and shouldn’t be behind a pay wall.
Course Structure
A full FutureLearn MOOC should be 6-10 weeks and mini-MOOC 3-5 weeks. Each week should have a reasonably consistent number of learning hours (2-6 hours/week).
The structure is:
6-10 Weeks - each consists of:
1-3 Activity Blocks– A sequence of steps with a clear pedagogic approach. Each block consists of:
2-5 Steps (e.g. article, video, quiz, discussion, peerreview, exercise etc.)
The plan should reflect the structure of: Weeks –Blocks – Steps which all build together to create a coherent learning journey.
Communication with Learners
Email communications with learners MUST be restricted to those within the FutureLearn platform– learners should not be encouraged to contact us via @sheffield.ac.uk or personal email addresses. This would set up unrealistic expectations, place an unfair obligation on staff at the University and ultimately be unmanageable.
Communications with learners should be carefully planned – what will be said before the course? At the beginning and end of each week?At ‘high points’? Post course?
All communications with learners should be positive, encouraging, polite, not infringe copyright and open up rather than close down interaction.It should guide, encourage participation, offer feedback and help to promote Sheffield University.
Evaluation
FutureLearn will send out pre- and post- course surveys and we have the option of adding course-specific questions.
We will have access to in-course data and analytics both during and after the course.
The MOOCs Team will produce a comprehensive Course Evaluation Report once the course has finished.
Copyright
You have responsibility for identifying material that may be under copyright and notifying the MOOCs Team so that an assessment can be made if licensing needs to be sought. This is a long and complicated process so the more notice that you can give the better.
We do not want to unnecessarily limit what teaching materials are available to use in MOOCs. The campus licensing and ‘fair dealing’ exemptions to copyright law, however, do not apply to MOOCs. The difference is between using material in a closed educational environment (classroom or on MOLE) and opening it up free to anyone, anywhere, anytime online.
Materials that have been made freely available by the copyright holder, for example through Creative Commons licensing or OERs, should be able to be used but they will need to be double checked.
Anna Symington, November 2014