MOOCs: A UCT Discussion

MOOCS
A UCT DISCUSSION
Laura Czerniewicz
Sukaina Walji
Janet Small
Andrew Deacon
31 March 2014

MOOCs- open & online
Online courses
Open content MOOC

Open content MOOC Online course
Cost to user (for
access)
Free Student pays fees
Scale Granular, single
objects to courses
Small(er) scale
Entrance
requirements
No Yes, likely, just as for f2f
courses
Interaction with
lecturers and peers
No, content only Yes, in variable ways
Providers Many traditional
universities, but other
providers
Traditionally distance
education providers
Analytics and
automation
No No, limited to date, as they
tend to run on traditional
LMS’s
Certification No Yes, equivalent to f2f
Synchronous (time
limits)
Stand alone Start date and end date,
asynchronous within
Copyright Open licenses (e.g.
Creative Commons)
or public domain
Generally proprietary, using
textbooks as f2f courses do,
may include some open
Yes, advantageous
Free
No
Residential universities
Private-university
partnerships
Variable, open content not
automatic, user generated
content generally belongs to
MOOC owner
No, not conventional
Variable
Start & end
date, asynchronous
within
Massive
No
Yes
Free
Massive
No
Variable
Residential universities
Public private partnerships
No, or not
conventional
Start & end date
Asynchronous within
Variable, open content not
automatic, user generated usually
belongs to MOOC provider

April 2012
http://edutechnica.com/moocmap

October 2012

April 2013

October 2013

Value
 Innovate & experiment in online education
 Learnings support pedagogy in general within the university
 Greater understanding of specific areas eg IP and access
 Preparing for the future
 Support strategic goals of
outreach, knowledge in service to society
 University reputation and branding
 Attract students
 For UCT: African expertise
Reports from MIT, Edinburgh, Duke, Uni London, Uni Illinois

MOOC options and
opportunities

e.g HS
courses
e.g BUS
courses
e.g Global Citizenship
e.g Write Science
courses
e.g. GetSmarter
coueses
e.g. most degrees

Showcase teaching
and introduce topics with
high-profile ‘rockstar’
presenters
Introduce fields and
support students in
undergraduate
study
Develop skills and
introduce topics for
postgraduate
study.
Showcase research
and special interest
topics of interest to
postgraduate level
Showcase professional
careers for continuing
education and qualifications

Category 1 Teaching
showcase
General
interest high
profile course
Showcases
the institution
by means of
an engaging
subject or
personality
led.
Global
interest and
matches a
popular
understandin
g of high
profile
MOOCs
 n
High production costs | high enrollment | loose curriculum ties
May attract external funding

Category 2 Gateway skills
Provides
foundational,
bridging or
enhancement
skills for pre
HE entry or
during
undergraduate
pathways
towards
specialisation.
Could replace
teaching for
'bottleneck
courses.’
Local interest,
either within
the institution
or at a country-
wide setting. Moderate production costs | low enrollment | close curriculum ties
May attract external funding |

Category 3 Graduate literacies
Post-
graduate
level
courses to
support
application
or
programmes
of study
Focussed on
building
postgraduat
e literacies.
Likely to be
of local or
national
interest.
Moderate production costs | low enrollment | close curriculum ties
May attract external funding

Category 4 Professional
showcase
Geared
towards
vocational
skills
development, r
e-tooling and
professional
development.
Could be
offered in
conjunction
with
professional
bodies.
Likely to be of
local
interest, althou
gh some
specialised
topics may be
globally
relevant. .
Moderate to high production costs |medium to high enrollment
Close curriculum ties |May attract organisational funding
High potential for pathway to credit or revenue generation

Category 5 Research
showcase
Showcase
research or
more
specialised
topics of
interest
Offered at
postgraduate
level and
assume some
background in
the topicstill
geared towards
general or
leisure
learning.
Likely to have
global appeal.
Moderate/high production costs | medium/high enrollment
Loose curriculum ties

Course offered simultaneously as a formal
and as a open course.
Small private open course nested inside a
MOOC
Massive Online Course: formal course
inspired by MOOC pedagogy
Students in a course taking a MOOC with
added local support and additional material
Massive Open Online Course
Formal course with lectures and
support.

Wrapped MOOCs at UCT
Time Topic
Group meets every -Monday for 5
weeks
Critical Thinking in Global Challenges
https://www.coursera.org/course/criticalthinking
Group meets every -Thursday for
5 weeks
Principles of Written English
https://www.edx.org/course/uc-berkeleyx/uc-berkeleyx-colwri2-
2x-principles-1348
Group meets every -Monday for 6
weeks
Understanding Research: An Overview for Health Professionals
https://www.coursera.org/course/researchforhealth
Group meets every second
Wednesday for 5 weeks
Model Thinking
https://www.coursera.org/course/modelthinking
Group meets every Monday for 6
weeks
Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials
https://www.coursera.org/course/clintrials
Group meets every Wednesday
for 10 weeks
Data Analysis and Statistical Inference
https://www.coursera.org/course/statistics
Group meets every Thursday for
6
University Teaching 101 *NEW*
https://www.coursera.org/course/univteaching101

Discussion
 Why do you want to
create a MOOC?
 What are your
interests?
 What brought you
here?
 Why don’t you want
get involved in
creating a MOOC?
 What are your
concerns?

Imagining MOOCs
The six ‘P’s approach:
 purpose
 possibilities
 pedagogy
 platforms & partners
 provisioning
 process to roll out

Purpose
 Broad institutional goals
Using the MOOC categories
 Department / faculty goals
 Individual goals

Possibilities
 Having decided on audience, purpose and
category - what are the possible topics?
Make a proposal for an actual MOOC (or
variant) – develop a concept

Pedagogy
 How you want your MOOC to be taught
online? (which will depend on your target
audience, course purpose and expected
learning outcomes, as well as costs and
possibly platform affordances)

Platform and Partners
 Which platform partner will suit your MOOC
and work best for UCT?
 Other stakeholders and funders

Provisioning
 Two levels:
 1. Institutional - applies to all Massive Online
courses at UCT
 2. Course level – applies to each course

Process & roll-out
 identifying an academic or team of academics
willing to devote the necessary time to the project
 constituting a course development team (CILT
staff, academics & student assistants from
department who will be offering course)
 initiate course design
 course production schedule
 test materials
 launch course
 Running/supporting/monitoring
 Evaluation

What to expect
 The key themes:
- sheer workload involved in planning and
developing the content,
- the resources required for video production on
top of the individuals’ ‘regular’ jobs.
- Creating effective strategies to manage the large
number of participants in the MOOC forums was
also reported as a challenge.
University of London 2013 report on MOOCs

Considerations - opportunities
 EdX has already enabled MIT professors to reach
hundreds of thousands of students in a year… An MIT
professor might reach more students in a single edX
class than in a lifetime of conventional teaching.
 Duke University professor: Dr. Barr noted that it would
typically take him 10 years or more to teach more than
300 students Bioelectricity in its usual face to face
format. The instructor not only reached many more
students than he would have in a campus course, but
he also observed that it was a broader and deeper
range of students, many with expertise in topics
closely related to bioelectricity. (12 000 enrolled; 8 000
active in week 1; 1000 engaging each week)

Consideration - time
 Over 600 hours of effort were required to build
and deliver the course, including more than 420
hours of effort by the instructor. (Report on
Duke’s first MOOC)
 time preparing before MOOC began (excluding
filming), 83% of respondents spent at least 10
hours a week, the remainder working 5-10 hours
each week on preparation. Once their MOOC
started, majority of teams (66%) spent at least 10
hours a week managing their MOOC (University
of London’s first 4 MOOCs)

Considerations - risks
• adherence with copyright laws for use of all images,
figures, journal articles, etc.;
• licensing agreements for any software that is used by
course-takers;
• export control over any software or other technology that
course-takers might have access to;
• complaints or suits from course-takers who experience
damages to their computers as a result of downloading
course software;
• accessibility issues (e.g., closed captioning, translation);
and
• culturally-related concerns about course content (e.g.,
sexual, religious, or politically-related language or
images). (Univeristy of Illinois 2013 (p 16)

Immediate steps:
 Today: interested parties to explore
possibilities
 After the meeting: produce an outline concept
and discuss feasibility with CILT
 One month: Concepts for decision
 One year: produce UCT’s first MOOC
 Eighteen months: more MOOCs from UCT?

Contact
 Laura.Czerniewicz@uct.ac.za
 Andrew.Deacon@uct.ac.za
 Janet.Small@uct.ac.za
 Sukaina.Walji@uct.ac.za
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike
2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/ or send a letter to
Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco,
California, 94105, USA.

MOOCs: A UCT Discussion

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