E-learn Weblog of Willem van Valkenburg

It has been a while that I have gave you an update about our MOOC activities. A lot of information I shared with the people that attended the Action Lab at OEGlobal, but that session wasn't recorded. So here is the update.

MOOCs

Since we began in 2013 we have developed 18 MOOCs. Some MOOC have run for multiple times. In total we already have more than 415,000 enrolments and have issued more than 12,000 certificates (1062 ID-verified).

New audiences

The first MOOCs we run were aiming at Bachelor students. This year we added some MOOCs that will attract other audiences. For example, the course Topology of Condensed Matter is much more directed toward Master and PhD students with a background in physics. We didn't expect a lot of learners, but still got more than 3,000. 50% of the learners has an advanced degree (Master or higher). Interesting is that the average age is lower than normal (27 instead of 29 in most courses).
Another course is the pre-university calculus course that focuses on high school students. 40% of the learners has a high school diploma as highest diploma. This course will start in July and the goal is to freshen up their math before they start at college or university in September. Already more than 10k learners signed up.

Self-Paced Courses

This summer we are offering two of our courses as self-paced courses starting on June 2nd. This means that there is almost now involvement of the teacher, but we do have student assistants moderating the forums. The courses we are offering are:

• Introduction to Aeronautical Engineering
• Creative Problem Solving and Decision Making

Translations

By default we offer English transcript. For the course Data Analysis to the MAX() we also translated the transcripts to Dutch, Hindi and Mandarin.

Because we also publish our MOOC content with an open license on ocw.tudelft.nl, the course Water Treatment is also translated to Japanese.

Sublicensing

�We are strong on openness, but also have to earn some money to cover our costs. Key questions are:

• Is it possible to sublicense a MOOC and uphold our Open Policy?
• Is our Open Policy threatened when we sublicense our MOOCs?�

Most sublicensing models are based on the licensing of content, but that doesn't work with our open license model. My colleague Martijn presented our solution at the OEGlobal Conference. I think we found a good solution that combines our open policy with sublicensing. The main slide is below:

Basically it means that our course materials are all openly-licensed, but you need a license with us if you want our Educational Services and Teacher Effort.

Based on this model, we got a sublicensing deal with Arabic MOOC platform EdRaak and there is interest from other organisations.

Online Learning Experiences

As part of our continues activities to enhance the quality of our courses we developed the online learning experience. The Online Learning Experience (OLE) is a student-centred, online learning model that holds eight interrelated principles, which define TU Delft�s online courses.

In the presentation below the model is explained:

At the EDEN Conference in Barcelona (Friday, parallel session H1) Nelson Jorge, Sofia Dopper and I will present the model in more detail, based on the paper we have written about it.

Future developments

There are more developments, but those I can't publish yet. So watch this space for more updates.

Just like last year, a selection of papers of the Open Education Global Conference are published in the ICDE Journal Open Praxis. Open Praxis is a peer-reviewed open access scholarly journal focusing on research and innovation in open, distance and flexible education. Open Praxis is published by ICDE and is under the editorship of Dr. Inés Gil-Jaurena at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Spain.

According to the editors the selected papers presented in this issue are a good example of some trends they currently find in the field of open education:

• The increasing number of research and showcases with a focus on openness, providing a rigorous basis for getting recommendations, lessons learned, highlights.
• The relevance of open educational practices, a step beyond open educational resources and open courses.
• The core position of open education within the transformation of higher education, and the relevance of institutional strategies which include "open" to do so.

Here is the list of papers:

• Capacity-building in open education: an Australian approach
  Carina Bossu, Wendy Fountain

• The Open Library at AU (Athabasca University): Supporting Open Access and Open Educational Resources
  Colin Elliott, Elaine Fabbro

• Recommendations on Formative Assessment and Feedback Practices for stronger engagement in MOOCs
  Nikolaos Floratos, Teresa Guasch, Anna Espasa

• Using an ‘open approach’ to create a new, innovative higher education model
  Susan Huggins, Peter Smith

• Using Open Educational Practices to Support Institutional Strategic Excellence in Teaching, Learning & Scholarship
  Thomas Carey, Alan Davis, Salvador Ferreras, David Porter

• Learning from the innovative open practices of three international health projects: IACAPAP, VCPH and Physiopedia
  Tony Coughlan, Leigh-Anne Perryman

• Book review: Book review of The Battle for Open
  Daniel Dominguez

The papers are published in Open Praxis Vol 7, No.2 (2015). Other papers of the conference can be downloaded from the conference website.

Vorige week is bekend gemaakt welke van de 45 ingediende projecten dit jaar financiering krijgen van het Ministerie van Onderwijs als onderdeel van de stimuleringsregeling Open en Online Onderwijs 2015. Dit jaar is er 800k euro beschikbaar met een maximum van 100k per project. In totaal zijn er 11 projecten gehonoreerd, waarvan 1 door de TU Delft ingediend. Daarnaast zijn wij betrokken bij het gehonoreerde project van Codarts.

Responsible Innovation

Het TU Delft project dat is goedgekeurd gaat over Responsible Innovation (in Nederland vaak Maatschappelijk Verantwoord Ondernemen (MVO) genoemd:

Our ambition for this project is to develop multipurpose online content and to create flexible learning paths in Responsible Innovation (RI) for different target groups:

• Our on-campus engineering students;
• Professionals (engineers/designers/architects and decision makers/executives).

Flexibility means: content, didactics, and assessment/recognition. These will be geared towards the specific needs of the different target groups. RI is a very topical subject and implies a different mind-set on the part of engineers: one of societal engagement and social responsibility. Engineers need professional competences and abilities to improve societal outcomes and to develop appropriate innovative solutions which accommodate core values such as sustainability, privacy, safety and security. This is what the project will address.

Developing flexible learning paths for a broad target group requires capacity building at an institutional level. This is the second main objective of the project. We will share the knowledge we will develop and the implications for institutional polices. In this project, the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management and TU Delft Online Learning (TUDOL) will work closely together.

Wat ik zelf interesant vind aan dit project is dat we ons hierbij niet alleen richten op de traditionele campus studenten, maar ook heel nadrukkelijk op de lifelong learners. Een doelgroep die we als Nederlands HO slecht weten te ondersteunen. Het onderwerp dat wij hierbij gekozen hebben is relevant voor iedereen die zich bezighoudt met innovatie. Een veel gebruikt voorbeeld is van de zelfrijdende auto: wie is er verantwoordelijk bij een ongeluk, maar ook welke keuze moet de auto maken bij een onvermijdelijk botsing.

Naast bovenstaand voorstel, zijn wij betrokken bij het opzetten van een lectoraat bij Codarts op het gebied van online muziektheoretisch onderwijs.

MOOCs

Wat mij opvalt is dat er voornamelijk MOOC-voorstellen (5 van de 11) zijn goedgekeurd. Wij krijgen dus nu MOOCs op het gebied van openbaar bestuur (NHL + HHS), data science (Tilburg + OU), Systeemanalyse en duurzaamheid (WUR) en Voedselveiligheid (WUR). Gezien het feit dat er in Europa nu al bijna 1.250 MOOCs beschikbaar zijn, vraag ik mij af hoe innovatief dat is. Ter illustratie: TU Delft heeft inmiddels al 18 MOOCs ontwikkeld met meer dan 400.000 enrolments.

Vrijwel alle voorstellen zijn erg gericht op het ontwikkelen van content. Ik hoop maar dat ze hierbij de didactiek niet vergeten, want onze ervaring is dat dit veel belangrijker is.

It all started with the publication of the report Preparing for the digital university: a review of the history and current state of distance, blended, and online learning (PDF).  This report is written by George Siemens, Dragan Gašević, and Shane Dawson. The report is based on the research that was funded via the MOOC Research Initiative (MRI).

The report is an interesting read with a lot of useful information. So I would recommend everyone with interest in online education and MOOC to read it. Although the report suggest it gives a complete overview of the history of MOOCs and online education. But the research was limited to the literature that was used for the granted MRI projects.
This gives an interesting perspective of all the MRI researchers. Most of them are (not completely) aware of the history of online education from before 2012.

The Clash

Stephen Downes wrote a review of the report and wrote the bold statement "Having said all that, this is a really bad study". This started a twitter discussion and many interesting blog posts:

• George Siemens: On Research and Academic Diversity
• Stephen Downes: Non-Research Citations in the Siemens Research Study
• Rolin Moe: What *We* Talk About When *We* Talk About MOOCs
• Geoff Cain: Siemens and Downes on “Preparing for the Digital University”
• Stephen Downes: Research and Evidence
• George Siemens: The Linearity of Stephen Downes. Or a tale of two Stephens
• Stephen Downes: The Study, and Other Stuff 

The clash still continues and both Stephen and George really are keeping the clash civilised and interesting.

Image is created by Alan Levine (@cogdog) an published on twitter.

Yesterday we received three awards at the yearly Open Education Award Ceremony. With these three awards our total comes to 10 awards in the last 4 years. It always is great honour to receive external recognition for the activities of our professors and support staff. It strengthen our mission for open education at TU Delft.

OpenMOOCs

Solving Complex Problems, by Alexander de Haan, is about Complex Multi Actor Systems, ‘spaghetti situations’ in which everything appears to be interlinked and many factors influence each other. Consider, for example, a situation in which new energy technology is introduced into an existing energy market. In such situations, people often talk about solutions, but nobody is exactly sure what the question is, or the best solution. Quantitative and qualitative models can help people understand such complex issues. Course participants will acquire practical tools and methods with which to structure and analyse complex problems.

Delft Design Approach, by Jaap Daalhuizen, has also received an Award of Excellence in the ‘Open MOOC’ category. The Delft Design Approach is a structured approach that helps designers cope with complex design projects – from the formulation of a strategic vision and mapping users and their contexts to developing and selecting meaningful designs for products and services. TU Delft hopes that this MOOC will introduce participants to its own unique approach to design, using several models and design methods, and drawing upon the knowledge and experience of experts from both education and practice. The online course allows participants to compare their results with those of students studying on campus at Delft and designers from the profession.

OpenCourseWare

The Human Controller, by David Abbink, is a course in the Mechanical Engineering Master’s degree programme. The course material (video lectures, exercises, articles, exam questions, etc.) is freely available as OpenCourseWare (OCW) on the internet. The Open Education Consortium has awarded the course as an ‘Outstanding (OCW) Course’.
The course studies man’s abilities and limits with regard to controlling machines. Various human sensors are explained, and participants learn how muscles work and how movement is coordinated. Man’s ability to control is explained within the context of control technology – a tricky subject that is made somewhat easier by considering examples from the practical situation. Two of the course assignments involve students doing their own experiments to demonstrate that the theory also applies to them. In one of these projects, the students download software that requires them to follow a moving dot with their mouse. This game allows the students to experience just how difficult it can be to control different types of systems, and teaches them how to measure their own control behaviour and construct mathematical models.

Yesterday EdX and Arizona State University announced the Global Freshman Academy. Here is their promovideo:

When I saw the announcement yesterday, one of the things that I thought of was the quote of Thomas Friedman:

When outstanding becomes so easily available, average is over - Thomas Friedman

It would have been innovative ...

• if they would have created this curriculum with the best moocs in the world. But no, the teachers of ASU will create the moocs.
• if they would openly license the moocs. But no, there is nothing mentioned about that.
• if the costs would be dramatically lower. But no, a full year still costs 6000 dollar. For comparison, a Dutch students pays less than 2000 euro per year for tuition.

So I agree with George Siemens, this is only innovative in PR and Marketing. But as Dirk van Damme is just saying at OE Global Conference educational systems will be confronted with their limits if they do not innovate. We need real innovation and not just marketing.

This week I'm in the beautiful town of Banff in the state of Alberta (Canada) for the Open Education Global Conference 2015. This is the yearly conference organised by the Open Education Consortium. As board member I have to be present at this conference, but that is never a burden.

It always is a busy conference for me. Next to the conference we also have the board meeting of the consortium. This year Meena also tricked me in some workshops. So you have multiple opportunities to see me in action.

Pre-conference workshop
On Tuesday we start with a pre-conference workshop on getting started with Open Education. Together with Robert Schuwer, Martijn Ouwehand, Jure Cuhalev and Meena Whang I will organise a full day workshop. This conference will be based on the workshop we organised last year as part of the OpenCourseWare Europe project.

Action Lab MOOCs
On Friday I'm organising an 'Action Lab' about everything you want to know about MOOCs. In this one hour session I will try to answer all the questions the participants have on the production and delivery of MOOCs.

Awards
This year the TU Delft has won three awards:

• Outstanding course: The Human Controller (David Abbink)
• Open MOOC: Delft Design Approach (Jaap Daalhuizen)
• Open MOOC: Solving Complex Problems (Alexander de Haan)
  

The project manager of the Design mooc is here at the conference, so she will pick up this award. The other two Martijn and I will pick up on behalf of David and Alexander.

Banner Image: CC-BY-SA Karl Johnson

This afternoon we organised an Open Education Week Seminar as part of the 4th Open Education Week. I had the honour to do the keynote about the state of Open Education. Below are the slides I used during the presentations. The video recording will follow tomorrow.

Last week EADTU released the report "Institutional MOOC strategies in Europe". This research is conducted as part of the EU-funded project HOME (Higher education Online: MOOCs the European way) by Robert Schuwer and Darco Jansen.

This report on MOOCs intends to contribute to literature on MOOCs in Europe. Its specific aim is to present data on the perception and objectives of European higher education inst itutions on MOOCs and the main drivers behind the MOOC movement. In addition, the report makes a comparison with similar studies conducted in the United S tates in 2013 and 2014 and to data produced by the European University Association (EUA) between Octob er and December 2013. The report made clear that involvement is still increasing, but also that arguments to get involved differ from those in the US. The survey was conducted in October December 2014. In total 67 institutions responded out of 22 European countries representing in total about 2.8 millions of students.

The most interesting of the report is the difference with the US:

Some parts of the survey encompasses identical questions as used in the US surveys of 2013 and 2014. The results show large differences between both continents. A large majority of European higher education instit utions disagree with the statement that credentials for MOOC completion will cause confusion about higher education degrees while a majority in the US agrees. Next, more than 80% of European institutions agrees with the statement MOOCs are important for in stitutions to learn about online pedagogy while in the US it has decreased from 44% in 2013 to 28% in 2014. In the US the opinion is mostly neutral or disagree on the question if MOOCs are a sustainable method for offering courses , but in the EU more than half of the institutions agrees.

As sustainable member (and board member) of the Open Education Consortium we feel obliged to actively participate in the Open Education Week (Noblesse oblige). Here you find the overview of the activities we are organising on our campus in Delft. There will be many more activities during the week by all the organisations that are participating.

Monday, March 9th: Research Seminar: Data Science

During the research seminar we will address topics like learning analytics, gamification and assessment. Many researchers from TU Delft and other universities will share their visions on research in Open & Online Education.
Time: 9:00 – 13:00 | More info

Monday March 9th: Education Seminar: Open Education

During the education seminar both our E-dean of Open & Online Education, one of the board members of the Open Education Consortium and lecturers of TU Delft and other HE institutions will shed their light on sharing and reusing Educational resources and the impact of Online education on campus.
Time: 14:00 – 17:00 | More info

Tuesday, March 10th, Workshop: Develop an 'Open' Course design

Learn about what open educational practices are and how you can design your course around reusing Open Education(al resources).

Time: 14:00 – 17:00 | More info

Wednesday, March 11th: Visit the New Media Centre

Sign up for a tour to the New Media Centre, catch a glimpse of the recording studios, learn how to prepare for recording learning videoclips (short workshop) and find out everything you want to know about the services the New Media Centre can provide.
Time: 14:00 - 15:30 Group 1 (max. 12 participants), 15:30 - 17:00 Group 2 (max. 12 participants) | More info

Thursday, March 12th: A Future for Open Education?

Join the debate and discuss the current developments and future directions of TU Delft Open & Online Education with Anka Mulder, Vice president Education & Operations TU Delft.
Time: 14:00 - 15:00 / More info

There is one registration form to register for these events.