QAA: MOOCs and Quality: A Review of Recent Literature
Dr Sarah Hayes July 2005
Definitions
QAA: Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. An organisation “to safeguard the standards of awards and improve the quality of UK higher education.”
Notes
Preface
QAA is pro MOOC for innovation, wider participation, life long learning, blended learning opportunities and promoting HE.
QAA “want to help prospective students make informed decisions about the quality of MOOCs, while respecting the open and innovative nature of this provision”
“ UK universities and other awarding organisations are responsible for the quality of all the courses they offer. Since MOOCs are typically non-credit bearing and have no particular entry requirements, they are not formally scrutinised during QAA review.”
QAA wishes to help support and promote the use of MOOCs in HE.
There is a development toolkit that can be used in junction with the “UK Quality Code for Higher education” to assist HEIs and their questions on MOOCs.
Intro
Simpson 2013 sees MOOCs to be designed for increased engagement
Clow 2013 sees MOOCs to “funnel participation”
There are questions on weather MOOCs are a suitable platform to award accreditation in a HE context
“Wintrup et al (2015, p 31) report participant accounts of the value of the ‘unconditional and free nature of their learning’ and ‘intellectual stimulation and personal development’.”
Currently credit is not a key motivator however OBHE 2013 found that this will change.
“MOOCs are significant catalysts for sector wide change” and HEIs need to plan to adapt; considering: organisation, content, delivery, feedback mechanisms, awards, pedagogy, course design, assessment and the teacher’s role.
“MOOCs were successful in: ‘enabling many participants to feel engaged in intellectual endeavours, such as forming new understandings, making connections with previous knowledge and experience, and exploring knowledge actively, creatively and critically’ (HEA, 2015”)
Nature of MOOCs
“In 2014 approximately 1,000 MOOCs were available from universities in the USA, and 800 from European institutions, and in several languages besides English (Bates, 2014).”
There are many different views on MOOCs rise in popularity:
Barber et al, (2013) see MOOCs as revolutionary
Christensen (2010) sees MOOCs as disruptive
Brabon (2014) sees MOOCs as “opening up education on an unprecedented scale”
Bates (2013) sees MOOCs as a “more modern version of educational broadcasting, which does not affect the basic fundamentals of education”
Implication of MOOCs into the process of higher learning:
“Brabon (2014) raises questions about pedagogy, experience, new business models for higher education and quality assurance, suggesting that if MOOCs are simply integrated into institutional flexible and blended learning strategies this overlooks the opportunity to reconceive how higher education might respond, by reimagining the idea of the campus degree.”
“In response, Kernohan (2014, p 7) suggests the majority of commercial MOOCs are closer to traditional models of mass higher education, citing the role of the ‘rockstar professor’ and the focus on the teacher, rather than the institution they work for, where the ‘persistent nature of the teacher as the primary point of contact’ is a design feature of the MOOC and not of quality assurance processes.”
Types of MOOC
Massive Open Online Course, so its infinitely scalable, available freely for all, online or potentially on an intranet and it’s educational material usually structured to fit a learning objective.
cMOOC is connectivist facilitating community learning.
xMOOC is content-orientated, information delivered in the classic classroom format.
Clarke (2013) outlines 8 main types:
Transfer MOOC: an existing course transferred to the MOOC platform
Made MOOC: Innovative creative use of media and the MOOC platform to create a formal, quality-driven MOOC. Peer assesments are used to cope with large nnumbers of prticpants. Format used for Vocational Open Online Courses (VOOCs)
Synchronous MOOC: fixed start and end dates with deadlines for assessments.
Asynchronous MOOC: start and end is flexible or frequently run, learners can complete at their own pace.
Adaptive MOOC: Use of algorithms to modify the course content and format based on student’s prerequisites
Group MOOC: participants are split into small groups depending on location and ability level and they progress through the course together
Connectivist MOOC: content and knowledge sharing within the community of learners.
Mini MOOC: short intense courses hours/days not weeks with a specific learning objective.
Concerns
Quality of learning and the course needs to be evaluated
Delivered in small chunks which are then signed off
Taking an old syllabus and using a MOOC platform will modify the material and delivery
Drop out rates could be due to poor quality or maybe dependant on the students personal needs and objectives
Downes states MOOCs are process defined not outcome defined
Metrics and data analytics can help make a MOOC better and possibly decrease drop out rates
Success of a MOOC is that it meets the learner’s objectives and parts of the course or the assessment element of the course may not be what they need or want; this doesn’t mean they don’t benefit from the course.
Quality, sustainability, pedagogy and completion rates are key elements that concern HEIs using MOOCs.
Working on ensuring the pre-course information on the format and learning objectives of a course may help reduce drop out rates.
Requirements
Conole 2013 says key elements for learning design should promote: reflection, dialogue, collaboration, apply theory to practice, community, creativity, and motivation.
Margaryan et al 2015 conducted a study of MOOCs “based on a 10-principle framework, they draw five fundamental principles from Merrill (2002, 2009, 2013), abstracted from key instructional design theories and models”. First 5 are activity based and the remaining 5 are resources focused:
- Problem-centred: “acquire skills in the context of real-world problems. This is contrasted with topic-centred instruction.”
- Activation: “activate existing knowledge as a foundation for new skills.”
- Demonstration: “showing learners how to apply the new information or skill in new situations. “
- Application: “apply their newly acquired skill to solve problems.”
- Integration: “to reflect on what they have learned, revise, synthesise, or modify their new skills, and demonstrate and defend their new knowledge or skill to peers and others.”
- Collective knowledge: “learners contribute to the collective”.
- Collaboration
- Differentiation: each learner is “provided with different avenues of learning, according to their need.”
- Authentic resources: “resources are drawn from real-world settings.”
- Feedback: “expert feedback on their performance.”
“’The results indicate that although most MOOCs are well-packaged, their instructional design quality is low’ (Margaryan et al, 2015, p 77).”
“Many MOOCs though have little or no qualified tutoring or guidance, just online areas for student communication and learning materials resulting in learning engagement being out of the control of the organisers.”
Morris 2014 covers 7 main quality issues to consider with MOOCs; but in short everything has issues in maintaining/regulating/monitoring/verifying quality of the MOOC’s content, resources and qualifications.
Oppertunities
MOOCs affecting the educational market gives opportunity to re-evaluate:
- Curriculum, curriculum design and the resources used
- Policy
- Tools
- Relationship with students and other staff
- How MOOCs could fit in with classroom and distance learning
“Wintrup et al (2015) suggest further research from three key perspectives”
- • Education enhancement: curriculum developers and learners
- • Higher education providers and their marketing teams
- • Researchers and policy makers.
See paper for full list of areas in need of further research.
Kate Nicolson 