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It’s easy to make a MOOC!  So why are more not doing it?

Brian Mulligan, Institute of Technology Sligo, Ireland. mulligan.brian@itsligo.ie

Abstract.

It has been suggested by many that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to be revolutionary in the provision of education, particularly in relation to adults (Conole, 2013).  This is often expressed as either the potential to undermine existing providers of adult education as a “disruptive innovation” or radically improve access to education, particularly for disadvantaged groups (Woruba, 2015). However, there is considerable scepticism about the sustainability of Massive Open Online Courses, generally based on the high cost of course development reported by the larger institutions who have developed MOOCs with very high production values (Hollands and Devayani, 2014).  However, many believe that such high production values are not necessary for the development of good quality MOOCs (Mulligan, 2014).  The objective of the EU funded LoCoMoTion project (moocs4all.eu) has been the collection and dissemination of information on low-cost techniques for producing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  Among its outputs is a MOOC, “Making MOOCs on a Budget” showing people how to create MOOCs themselves.  The techniques collected include the both the use of Open Education Resources as well as the rapid creation of high quality educational videos.  Also included are the issues of engaging students at scale without increasing instructor workload as well as scalable assessment methods such as automated testing and peer assessment.  However, despite having delivered this MOOC twice, with good interest from academics, very few have proceeded to actually create their own MOOCs.  Why might this be so?  This presentation will give an overview of the techniques for low-cost production of MOOCs that have been collected as part of the project, and also invite participants to discuss the barriers that remain and how they might be overcome.

Keywords,

MOOCs, low-cost production, video production, scalability, disaggregation

1 Introduction.

Attitudes to MOOCs within higher education range from enthusiastic to sceptical.  Much of the scepticism comes from two particular arguments. One is that, because of the high development costs reported by the most visible MOOC providers (Hollands, 2014), MOOCs cannot be made to be financially sustainable in most topics.  A second source of scepticism is the observation that MOOCs may be of limited value to learners without certification that is similar in credibility to the formal qualifications being granted by well respected institutions for their full-time campus based programmes (Chauhan, 2014).  Both of these issues have an impact on the usefulness of MOOCs in developing countries.  The perceived high cost of production stifles the development of MOOCs for smaller audiences such as those topics that are specialised or rapidly changing.  Indeed, in developing countries, the need for courses in lesser used languages is seen as a barrier to the use of MOOCs as concluded by a higher education sector study in Tajikistan (Imaizumi, 2015).  The lack of traditional certification also reduces the credibility of the learning and the employability of the learners.  However, the opportunity for increasing access to education in low-income developing countries is such (Woruba 2015), that these issues need to be addressed.  

The Erasmus+ funded Locomotion project (moocs4all.eu) started in February 2015 with the objective of collecting and disseminating knowledge on low-cost techniques for MOOC development and delivery.  Part of the project  was the development of a MOOC called, “Making MOOCs on a Budget” which has now been delivered three times.  Despite the fact that the outputs of the project that MOOCs can indeed be developed with little financial support, the predicted number of people who might take an interest in this topic and more importantly the number proceeding to build MOOCs is disappointing.  This suggests that costs are not the only barrier to subject matter experts building MOOCs and that these other barriers also need to be identified and addressed before large scale open course development will emerge.

This paper primarily addresses the issues of cost control in MOOC development and also discusses the remaining barriers.

2 Is quality linked to the cost of production?

With regards to financial sustainability, there is much evidence that MOOCs can be made more sustainable by a number of measures, including lowering production costs.  Many of the early MOOCs, from high profile providers, adopted the relatively simple pedagogical approach of presenting content in videos and using quizzes for self-assessment and measurement of progress and discussion fora for encouraging deeper engagement with the content.  In such xMOOCs the major costs were in the production of videos of high TV-like production quality.  Despite the simple pedagogical approach of many of these xMOOCs, feedback from learners was extremely positive with significant evidence of learning.  However,  the success of lower production-quality videos, like those of the Khan Academy would indicate that high production values were not necessarily the key to the success of such xMOOCs (Noper 2013).

3. Lower cost approaches

However, the perception that MOOCs are expensive to develop is still widely held, particularly among those not heavily involved in online learning development.  A group of online learning and MOOC developers, who met at eMOOCs2013, and who believe that this perception may be inhibiting many individuals and institutions from developing MOOCs, successfully gained EU Erasmus+ funding for the LoCoMoTion project to investigate, test and disseminate information on Low-cost development of MOOCs (moocs4all.eu).  This project, which started in February 2015, has quickly developed and delivered a pilot MOOC called “Building MOOCs on a Budget” on the edX Edge platform.  This was the first step of a 2-year project testing various low-cost production approaches by assisting individuals and institutions in building low-cost MOOCs, refine and improve their own MOOC and publish the results.  This MOOC has subsequently been delivered several times, once on the edX Edge platform and finally on canvas.net.

The course covered many techniques or “tricks” that can be used to massively reduce efforts and costs in producing MOOCs and the following is a selection of those presented in the course.

3.1 Course Design and Planning

Although connectivist-style MOOCs (cMOOCs) can be developed more cheaply than transmission-style MOOCs (xMOOCs), it was recognised that most subject matter experts (SMEs) feel they need to transmit a body of material in some form or other, and this fact, along with their general familiarity with transmissive models resulted in the decision to concentrate on this form of delivery.

A simple approach to course design was recommended where an SME could use a template to select from a list of typical learning object types (videos, documents, third party Open Educational Resources (OERs), quizzes, discussion fora, peer graded assignments etc.) and in doing so essentially define the style of the planned MOOC.

Course planning could be simplified by creating a simple project plan in the form of a spreadsheet listing all learning objects to be created, by whom and by what date.

3.2 Selection of Technologies

Specific technologies are required for creation of content and for hosting courses.  Although free systems are available for both these functions they are not always the best options.  For content development, efficient use of the SME’s time is of paramount importance and some low-cost commercial solution may reduce overall cost when SME effort is taken into account.  The same may be true of hosting platforms, and it should also be borne in mind that the platform selection may impact on the visibility of the MOOC and subsequent enrolment levels.

3.3 Content Development

Although it is certainly cost effective to use free and openly licensed materials on the web to build courses, many SMEs prefer to create their own in order to align with their own particular views or teaching preferences or to create a sense of coherence within their course.  One of the fastest ways of developing content is to quickly develop short videos, often based on learning materials, such as existing powerpoint presentations or lesson plans, already in use by the SME.  With a modest investment and some tips and tricks it is possible to produce acceptable and even high quality learning videos.  Examples of the advice and tips are as follows:

Other learning object types can be more quickly developed using templates.  The following two examples illustrate this approach:

3.4 Institutional Services

Institutions that hope to develop many MOOCs and control costs, and have the added challenge of encouraging who have no interest or minimal skills in using technology, may need to provide some level of service to such SMEs.  The LoCoMoTion MOOC makes suggestions on how the work can be divided, and how the workflow can be designed and implemented, in order to minimise the technical work required of the SME.

For course design and non-video content, the use of templates is recommended.  Templates as described above can be used for the design of a course and if instructional design services are available some feedback can be provided and improvements made to the design.  Word processing templates can be used for many learning object types including quizzes, discussion fora and peer assignments.  Templates can also be provided for recording Powerpoint presentations.

For video content it may be best to provide editing and publishing services to the SME, requiring the SME only to make short recordings following a set of guidelines that make it easier for an editor to complete the processing.  

Unprocessed videos and other content can be stored in a shared area for subsequent processing and loading on to the MOOC platform.  Figure 1 illustrates how a simple workflow can be implemented with some level of quality assurance included.

Fig 1: Workflow for Video Production

4 The Intel Ireland Project on Low-cost Development of MOOCs

Some of the above techniques have been applied on an Intel Ireland funded project in Ireland where four MOOCs have been developed in Coding and Robotics aimed at secondary school children and young adults.  The topics for the four MOOCs are: Web Page Development, Mobile Apps Development, Multiplayer Online Games Development and “Roboslam” (Robotics Kit Building).  Three of these course have been delivered to-date in blended learning format to secondary and further education students.  One of the MOOCs has been also used with a group of secondary school students in Africa.  All courses were based on rapidly developed short videos and quizzes and the workflow described in figure 1 above was partially tested through the use of shared Google Drive folders between developers and a support person who assembled the courses on the MOOC platform (Moodle).

Although data has yet to be collected and analysed, initial interviews with developers and tutors indicated that the rapid approach to content development worked well and that they were satisfied with the learning that was facilitated through the use of these MOOCs in a  blended environment.

5 Accreditation

The second source of scepticism of MOOCs is the lack of formal accreditation that would have a similar credibility to the accreditation that can be gained from well regulated higher educational institutions through their formal programmes. (Chauhan 2014) .  This problem is being partially addressed by the introduction of alternative credentials such a Open Badges (Goligoski 2012) and “nano-degrees”.  More recently there have been some developments in using blockchain technology for improving the reliability of online issuing of certification. (Raths 2016) However, there is every reason to believe that it may take some time for these to be accepted by employers and for the foreseeable future learners will have a preference for traditional credentials when choosing programmes that will increase their employability.  This has been somewhat addressed by the American Council on Education (ACE) in their investigation into the accreditation of MOOCs (ACE 2012).  In addition many universities have offered to award credits for MOOCs taken elsewhere, often based on challenge examinations.  This disaggregated approach (Wiley 2009) to education might be considered to be a form of Competency Based Education insofar as the awarding institution is prepared to award credits based solely on assessment and/or evidence irrespective of how the learning occurred.

However, gaining credits for individual courses from many institutions, brings learners to the separate challenge of aggregating their credits to gain a major award.  Theoretically this can be achieved through Prior Learning Accreditation mechanisms (Fain 2012), but in practice it is quite difficult, and often impossible if institutions have certain minimal requirements.  This has led some institutions to develop complete programmes that may be taken using challenge examinations or competency based assessment.  Early approaches to this have not been implemented on an open basis, where learners can access the materials for free and then pay a fee to undergo assessment.  Both College for America (Southern New Hampshire) (Johnstone 2014) and University of Wisconsin (Herzog 2013), require learners to apply for entry, and pay a fee for registration before having access to the materials and assessment.  The low-cost Master in Science in Computer Science developed by Georgia Institute of Technology in conjunction with Udacity is based on a MOOC model of learning but limits enrolment to those who have been accepted and paid fees.  However, Arizona State University, in conjunction with edX, is adopting this model, with a set of 12 MOOCs that can be taken free, with the option of paying for assessment.  However, this does not result in an exit qualification and only can be used for entry into the second year of ASU programmes. (Anderson 2015).  Coursera have recently introduced (and copyrighted) the concept of “nano-degrees” which are a set of MOOCs with the option of payment for robust assessment including the requirement to complete a capstone project.  MIT have announced a version of this called the “micro-masters” that does lead to college credit acceptable as part of the completion requirements for a full masters from MIT.  University of Wisconsin have recently announced a full masters degree in this mode.

6 Further Barriers to MOOC Development

As the LoCoMoTion project draws to a close, it must be said that achievement against some of the objectives is disappointing.  The number of people signing up for the three deliveries of the MOOC is relatively low by MOOC standards.  This might suggest that as the number of available MOOCs increases it is increasingly difficult to get information to those who might benefit from them.  This could be addressed by increased marketing but this might incur significant costs undermining the low-cost approach.  

Another disappointing result is the proportion of those signing up for the MOOC who then proceed to start building their own MOOCs.  Although feedback from the participants was good and quite a few finished the course, many said that they were not in a position to build a MOOC at this point in time.  The main reason being given is that the time commitment involved was significant and this type of activity was not seen as a priority by their employers.  More recently discussions with interested parties have indicated that we may be overestimating the number of subject matter experts who see a benefit in sharing their knowledge openly and that in some cases it may be the employer that opposes the activity either because it it is broadcasting for free what they would normally charge for or because they may have concerns about the quality of the open courses.

7 Conclusions

The main conclusions from the work of this project are that it is indeed possible to create MOOCs of acceptable quality at low cost but that there may be other barriers to the creation of MOOCs by subject matter experts and that these barriers need to be identified and addressed.

References

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