E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

On May 26 2015, the Dutch Vereniging voor Onderwijs Research (VOR) organizes a symposium on research on MOOCs. During a number of presentations you will get an overview of current research into MOOCs and during the afternoon you will have the opportunity to listen to short case presentations by participants regarding research into MOOCs. But you can also provide your own cases to present at the symposium. There is an option on the registration form to indicate you interest in presenting a case.

One of the speakers is my colleague Pieter de Vries. He will talk about who's is the learner:

The Delft University of Technology (TUD) deployed her first generation of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in 2013-2014 delivered through the edX platform. These DelftX MOOCs were engineering courses designed at the level equivalent to that of a bachelor-program entry level. Almost 140 thousand students registered, around 3,7% received certificates of completion, and the rest participated to a degree reflective of their needs. To better understand the experiences of this massive number of learners, and ultimately enhance the MOOCs, TUD conducted the collection and analysis of data about learners and their contexts. This exploratory research focuses on the specific analyses pertinent to describing the demographics of an Engineering MOOC participant, as observed in the first generation of TUD MOOCs. The implications of the observed participant demographics are analysed and discussed.

The symposium will be on the campus of Wageningen University. For full programme and registration follow this link.