E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

The Open University (UK) has published an interesting report on MOOC research that was done at the OU from the start of the MOOCs in 2008 up until February of this year. The authors, Rebecca Fergason, Tim Coughlan, Christothea Herodotou, have searched the university’s Open Research Online (ORO) repository that use the word ‘MOOC’ in their title or abstract. Studies are divided thematically, and the report contains sections on the pedagogy of MOOCs, MOOCs and open education, MOOC retention and motivation, working together in MOOCs, MOOC assessment, accessibility, privacy and ethics, quality and other areas of MOOC research.

The report discusses 58 recommendations that have emerged from the research – each of which is linked to the research study that generated it. Some of these recommendations extend or reinforce what the University is already doing, some are very specific, and some are small scale. Overall, the research highlights ten priority areas for University activity.

MOOC priority areas

1. Influence the direction of open education globally
2. Develop and accredit learning journeys
3. Extend the relationship between learners and the OU
4. Make effective use of learning design
5. Make use of effective distance learning pedagogies
6. Widen participation
7. Offer well-designed assessment
8. Pay attention to quality assurance
9. Pay attention to privacy and ethics
10. Expand the benefits of learning from OU MOOCs

Download report.

Reference
Ferguson, Rebecca; Coughlan, Tim and Herodotou, Christothea (2016). MOOCS: What The Open University research tells us. Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

The annual conference of the Open Education Consortium (OEC) is next year in Cape Town 8 - 10 March. There is a special reason to have Cape Town as the venue in 2017 conference, since it marks the 10 year anniversary of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration. That is not the only milestone we will celebrate in 2017: 15 year anniversary of the term “Open Educational Resources” and the 5 year anniversary of the Paris OER Declaration.
The conference is organised jointly with the University of Cape Town.

Call for papers

The call for papers is online and you can submit proposal until 17th of October 2016:

The theme of the Open Education Global 2017 Conference is Open for Participation. In keeping with this theme, we will not have formal conference tracks, rather, we welcome all proposals concerning taking an open approach in education. This includes formal and non-formal education; primary, secondary and higher education; open educational practices, projects, policies, research, collaborations and impact; open data, open access, open science, open organizations, open source software, etc. We are open to your ideas!  

Again this year we are collaborating with Open Praxis. They will publish a selection of papers from the Open Education Global 2017 conference. Open Praxis is a peer-reviewed open access scholarly journal focusing on research and innovation in open, distance and flexible education, published by the International Council for Open and Distance Education – ICDE. 

Open Education Awards

The Open Education Awards for Excellence will be presented during the conference. These awards recognize distinctive open education projects, technological innovations, notable open courses, and exemplary leaders in Open Education worldwide. We encourage you to participate in the awards process by nominating your favorite people, projects and ideas. Call for nominations will open on September 05, 2016. Learn more about the awards and make your nominations here.  

As board member of the OEC I will certainly attend the conference and I hope to see many open education friends. Come join us in Cape Town International Convention Centre!

Earlier this year JISC has published an interesting report on Learning Analytics:

Drawing on eleven case studies, we examine why institutions are deploying learning analytics, and what the benefits are for learners. We also discuss the main data sources being drawn upon by institutions and the technical architecture required.

The emphasis of the report is on investigating the evidence for learning analytics: what impact is it having, and to what extent can the algorithms actually predict academic success? We also look at how institutions are carrying out interventions to attempt to retain students at risk, and provide better support for all students as they progress through their studies.

The report clearly defines 4 different contributions Learning Analytics can bring:

1. As a tool for quality assurance and quality improvement
   Learning Analytics can give lecturers much more insight in the effectiveness of their courses, information on improvements they can make and contribute to the quality assurance process.
   
   
2. As a tool for boosting retention rates
   Learning analytics can provide students with an opportunity to take control of their own learning, give them a better idea of their current performance in real-time and help them to make informed choices about what to study.
   
   
3. As a tool for assessing and acting upon differential outcomes among the student population
   Learning Analytics can provide valuable insights in making education more inclusive for minority groups.
   
   
4. As an enabler for the development and introduction of adaptive learning
   personalised learning delivered at scale, whereby students are directed to learning materials on the basis of their previous interactions with, and understanding of, related content and tasks.

I agree with the authors that learning analytics has the potential to transform the way we measure impact and outcomes in learning environments. The field of Learning Analytics is developing quickly, also driven by the research in MOOCs. Further investment in LA will lead to better outcomes for students, universities and wider society.

To tackle the challenges of providing top-level university education, Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam (LDE) have joined forces. Through this partnership three universities with complementary specializations create a world-class platform for educational research, innovation and training: the Centre for Education and Learning (CEL).

The LDE Centre for Education and Learning now seeks to appoint a Professor of Higher Education with a focus on teaching and learning processes in a digital environment. The Professor will be formally appointed at Delft University of Technology.

You will work closely with the online learning team of TU Delft, the Online Learning Lab of University of Leiden and project Online Onderwijs of Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Job Description

First, the chair covers the whole domain of higher education and includes the scientific reflection on research and theory development in the broad field of higher education. Subareas of higher education research and theory development include 1) students and their study success, 2) teachers and their teaching success, 3) learning environments for on-campus, online and blended teaching and learning, 4) special topics such as assessment, internationalization, diversity, and educational policy, and 5) teaching and learning in individual disciplines.

Second, the chair has a focus on teaching and learning in a digital environment, for instance online and blended forms of education followed by data analytics of these learning processes. New knowledge is to be created in this relatively new field of research. The three LDE universities are among the forerunners in this field and consider it of the utmost importance that these innovations are as much evidence-based as possible. The chair holder can rely and build on existing expertise within CEL and its pillars in the individual universities. It is expected that the chair holder brings the various researchers together and promotes knowledge exchange and joint knowledge creation. The research will enable evidence-informed university policy making, evidence-informed development of new university teaching projects, evidence-informed continuous professional training of university teachers, and will ameliorate teaching and learning theory.

More information on www.educationandlearning.nl/vacancy. The deadline for applications for this position is September 4, 2016.

This week Erna, Marjan and me attend the yearly userconference of Desire 2 Learn (D2L Fusion). We signed the contract 3 weeks ago, so it was a good opportunity for us to get to know the D2L community and learn from other universities.

This year’s FUSION was in Washington DC and was attended by around a 1000 participants and 30 partners.

Ambiance

I have been to many product user conferences, such as Blackboard, Stellent, EdX, Coursera, but this one is ranked very high on ambiance, contact with staff and leadership. The European team of D2L organized extra activities for us and helped us set up meeting with other universities to talk about their experiences. We really felt welcomed in the D2L community.

Product

One of the impressive sessions was the product update session. It was not just presenting new features, but based on a couple of scenarios live demo-ing how the scenario worked. Most of features that were presented are available right now or will be available in two weeks (no vaporware). I saw people turning on the new features on their ipads during the session. It is always risky to do live demos, but they even took it one step further and did it on three devices (laptop, tablet and mobile phone). They even used voice input. It all worked like a charm.

Important part of the product update is the new Daylight Experience. Watch this video to get an overview of this version:

One of the things that was missing in Brightspace was an integrated video solution. During the product update they announced that they have partnered up with YouSeeU. Per Augustus 4 there is a virtual classroom available inside the platform without additional costs. It can handle up to 100 participants, recordings are stored for 16 weeks and it includes dial-in for instructors.

Training and meetings

During the conference we had presentations and meeting with other universities that have made similar transition from other LMS to Brightspace. There were a lot of former Blackboard clients I have to say. But it was also interesting to talk to some of the first clients that are using the product for many years.

On Wednesday we had a full day of training in small groups. So plenty of time to hear from other universities as well. One of the things that our instructor will certainly like is this Course Adventure Pack. That really lines up with our tender were we said that the platform should be fun.

Conclusion

It was a good investment of our time and money. It really helped us to improve our migration plan and don’t make mistakes others have made.
For me it also strengthened our choice for D2L as partner for our Collaboration & Learning Environment.

Today we reached a big milestone in our MOOC activities: one million enrollments! Just before Christmas of 2012 I was asked to start a small project to develop 4 MOOCs. On September 15th 2013 the first two DelftX MOOCs started on the edX platform. Now 3 years later we have developed 36 MOOCs (and more in the pipeline). I'm proud of the result and the impact this project has had.

With the development of the first courses we were figuring out the process on-the-go. This was trully an adventure, nowadays it is a fully organised and supported process. For most course teams it is a first time experience and if they listen to our advice and tips it will be a easy but still an intensive process. Off course not all course teams listen (they're academics) and that keeps us busy ;-). More than 80 lecturers have been involved in one or more MOOCs. And don't forget all those students that assisted the lecturers in developing the courses.

In these three years were we started with a small support team of 4 (Janine, Mark, Gijs and me) and have grown to the Extension School support team of more than 20 people. That group is not just supporting MOOCs but also OpenCourseWare, Professional Education, Online and blended education.

Infographic

To celebrate this milestone we have created a infographics. You can download it from our website. The data of three years of MOOCs is impressive:

1M course enrollments by 699.014 learners from 229 countries aging between 8 and 94 (average age is 29). These learners have watched 13.824.919 minutes of video (26 year and 104 days). We have issued 28.739 certificates. Average pass rate for the verified certificates is 69% (highest 81,5%). More than 100k surveys were submitted. Our learners appreciate our MOOCs with a 8 (out of 10). Some courses even score above 9.

Awards

When you start an initiative it is always great to receive external recognising for your course. And we did:

• Nuffic Orange Carpet Award 2014 (award for best initiative for internationalisation of Dutch education)
• 4 OpenMOOC Awards of the Open Education Consortium
• Wharton Regional Award for Europe in 2015

Conclusion

The small MOOC project has been a tremendous success for TU Delft. The impact is much bigger than anticipated at the start. And we will continue to develop our MOOCs in quantity and quality. Below is an graphical view of the enrollments per course.

An interesting paper of George Veletsianos (Royal Roads University), Justin Reich (MIT), and Laura Pasquini (University of North Texas and Royal Roads University) was just published in the journal AERA Open (American Educational Research Association). The paper focuses on the activities of the learners in MOOC that can't be tracked in the tracking logs.

The authors interviewed 92 learners from around the world in different ages and gender. The learners participated in 4 MOOCs of HarvardX (they are aware that these learner might not be very representative).
Their research findings reveiled three domains of the experience of the MOOC learners that you can't see in the tracking logs.

Some of the findings:

• learners work at workstations that include not only computers but also notebooks, paper printouts, reference books, additional devices, and other people.
• students’ online activities extend beyond the MOOC platform, to a variety of reference resources and online social networks that support student learning. Whereas many MOOCs are designed as a comprehensive learning experience,  tudents appear to treat them as a single node in a broader network of learning opportunities.
• MOOC learning takes place in a broader learner world. This world goes beyond workstations, MOOC platforms, and online spaces, and it is a world in which students negotiate for time across multiple competing commitments.

I agree with the authors we should be more aware of what the learners are doing outside the platform. I do question if the HarvardX MOOCs are a good representation of current MOOC course designs. I personnally have the feeling they are still content centered and not focus on the learning experience.

Reference

• The Life Between Big Data Log Events. Learners’ Strategies to Overcome Challenges in MOOCs. George Veletsianos, Justin Reich, Laura A. Pasquini. AERA Open Jun 2016, 2 (3) 2332858416657002; DOI: 10.1177/2332858416657002

Yesterday I attend the policy forum on European MOOCs organised by the HOME project. This was the third event of the HOME project I attended after Porto and Rome. In 22 presentation we got a good overview of policy for MOOCs on European, governmental and institutional level. The presentators submitted 19 papers.

Full story »

Last week EADTU published the report MOOCs in Europe. This report is an overview of papers representing a collective European response on MOOCs as presented during the HOME conference in Rome November 2015. This report is published as part of the project HOME - Higher education Online: MOOCs the European way. The project is ending this month with a policy meeting on the 28th of June in Brussels.

The report includes 31 papers in 6 categories:

• Part 1: Regional MOOC initiatives (3 papers)
• Part 2: Role media exposure on MOOC development (2)
• Part 3: Supporting the selection of MOOC platforms (8)
• Part 4: Business models European MOOCs (5)
• Part 5: Pedagogical approaches in European MOOCs (8)
• Part 6: Shared services in European MOOC context (5)

The paper about the business model of TU Delft Extension School is included in part 4.

Interesting to see is the diversity of authors that have written the reports. They representing institutes in 18 countries (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Korea, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Turkey and UK). Although some large European countries (France and Germany) are not included.

Reference

• Jansen, Darco; Konings, Lizzie (2016). MOOCs in Europe. ISBN 978-90-79730-19-3

This week I'm attending the EDEN annual conference in the beautiful Budapest. Nelson Jorge, Sofia Dopper and me wrote a paper about the TU Delft Online Learning Experience. This is a pedagogical model that supports the development of our courses and strives for increasing quality. The creation of the OLE was an important step for TU Delft, contributing to the development of online courses in a more systematic and consistent way, guiding all course development teams through the realisation of several shared educational principles.

At the Gala Diner of the conference we received the EDEN 2016 Best Practice Inititative Award for our paper. The award is not just for the paper but for the whole initiative of designing the model and implementing it for our courses. I see it as a great appreciation for the work we are doing with the TU Delft Extension School.

Online Learning Experience model

The OLE holds 8 principles to support course teams in the design and development of online courses. The model was elaborated based on the foundations established by distance learning experts (Moore, 1991; Keegan, 1996; Palloff & Pratt, 1999; Garrison, 2000; Peters, 2000; Anderson, 2003; Garrison & Anderson, 2003; Salmon, 2011; Salmon, 2013; Bates, 2015) and the know-how of the TU Delft Online Learning Course Development Team.

Paper

The paper is part of the conference proceedings of the EDEN 2016 conference. Here you can download our paper:
eden_2016_budapest_proceedings-tudelft-ole.pdf

Please reference:

• Jorge, Nelson; Van Valkenburg, Willem; Dopper, Sofia (2016). The TU Delft Online Learning Experience: From Theory to Practice in Teixeira, Szucs and Mazar (2016). Conference Proceedings EDEN 2016 Annual Conference. ISBN 978-615-5511-10-3. License CC-BY 4.0

 Presentation

Here is the presentation Nelson presented at the conference.

 And the link to the model explaining all the principles. Below is the video of teacher's perspective of Online Learning Experience