CHAPTER TWO Review of Literature
2.23 Literature supporting the Emergence of MOOCs
McAuley, et al. (2010) gave an in-depth representation of MOOCs in their study entitled
‘The MOOCs Model for Digital Practice’. In the study, a comprehensive insight was given to the phenomenon of MOOCs and the study answered the enquiring questions that revolved around:
- The reflection of MOOCs in effective practices within the digital economy.
- The implications of MOOCs for knowledge-making within the digital economy.
- The economic opportunities/challenges brought by the open model of learning.
- Factors that limit participation in MOOCs.
- The application of the MOOCs model to engage and develop an effective digital citizenry.
The answers depicted MOOCs as an effective online pedagogical practice with potential to yield significant benefits detailed in McAuley, et al. (2010).
For Weigel (2013), MOOCs are been renowned as the democratiser of opportunities for education. A survey done in 2012 revealed that 41% of the respondents (learners) studying via MOOCs were working professionals, 31% were undergraduates and postgraduates and almost 40% of the respondents enrolled due to casual interest in a specific subject. This showed that MOOCs are gaining popularity through various reasons and motivations from prospective learners (Weigel, 2013). MOOCs are also seen as a potential cost reduction strategy for education as it has the ability to target millions of learners online and provide free education. This could eventually have a game-changing effect on education dissemination. It was also highlighted how an Import/Export approach can be incorporated to MOOCs whereby formal academic credits becomes available, at a reasonable fee outside the offering institutions, which could then promote a high economical reduction in faculty and administrative labour expense (Weigel, 2013).
76 Kop, Fournier and Fai-Mak (2011) examined MOOCs via a case study with the intention of establishing how emergent technologies could impact the design of the learning environment.
The primary focus was on the roles of educators and learners in creating learning experiences through MOOCs. Surveys were used to capture the learning experiences and activities of learners from two MOOCs provided by the Institute for Information Technology at the National Research Council of Canada and the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca University. It was shown that meaningful learning occurs when social and teaching presence governs the design, facilitation, and direction of the actual educational learning outcomes (Kop, Fournier and Fai-Mak, 2011). This was convergent to the views made by Shedroff (2009).
Furthermore, learners with different learning objectives lead to different levels of participation in learning activities which eventually leads to different learning outcomes. The study emphasised on ‘e-Learning maturing’ via MOOCs whereby students had higher levels of participation as they became more experienced with the MOOC phenomenon (Kop, Fournier and Fai-Mak, 2011) and concurred with (Mak, Williams and Mackness, 2010). It should also be noted that support structures play a key role in the adoption of MOOCs whereby the learning environment should be based on the creation of a community where learners felt comfortable, safe and valued (Kop, Fournier and Fai-Mak, 2011). Hence, this allows for critical and effective learning to take place. Lastly, instructors/teachers need to be dynamic and adaptable to change by effectively communicating, sharing and collaborating with learners throughout the course. Further results and highlights of the study are listed in detail in (Kop, Fournier and Fai-Mak, 2011).
A case study by Educause (2011) showed how an academic instructor, Margaret Lane, offered her course entitled ‘Novel Writing’ via a MOOC. Approximately 1,600 students signed up at no cost, of which most being from around the world including seven countries outside America. The MOOC students had access to recorded class lectures and social networking tools for interaction with one another and the instructor. As the semester progressed, the MOOC students organised themselves into peer-review groups and participated in intense online collaboration with one another and the instructor. At the end of the course, it showed that more learning took place via the MOOC as opposed to the traditional lecture students. An example was how some students received numerous critiques
77 and also had the opportunity to read content from other potential novelists. This in itself was a key knowledge sharing experience. Furthermore, the exposure provided by the MOOC for the online writing course allowed the instructor’s university to become quite popular and was viewed by prospective novelists as one key institution for aspiring writers, Educause (2011).
Similarly in 2008, George Siemens and Stephen Downes co-taught a course called
‘Connectivism and Connective Knowledge’ which was presented to 25 paying students at the University of Manitoba whilst concurrently offered to 2300 students from the general public for free via MOOCs (Fini, 2009). The course primarily gained popularity and momentum because of the 2,300 MOOC students as opposed to the classroom students. Furthermore, a MOOC at Stanford University entitled ‘Introduction to Artificial Intelligence’ facilitated by experts in the field, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig, attracted a world-wide enrolment of over 100 000 students (Educause, 2011). Friedman (2013) highlighted the experience of his friend, an Academic, Professor Michael Sandel who lectured an online Justice lecture in Seoul, South Korea in an outdoor venue to 14,000 people with Chinese subtitles. This generated over 20 million views on Chinese websites and gave Sandel similar popularity in China that was usually reserved for Hollywood movie stars (Friedman, 2013). This entire popularity and educational breakthrough was possible through MOOCs.
A new MOOC has been developed via the coalition of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), known as Havard-MIT Edx (Allison, et al., 2012; Friedman, 2013). This is available at edX (2013). A person can study a course at no cost from any university listed on this MOOC website including courses from Harvard University, MIT, Rice University, University of Texas, University of Toronto and many more (edX, 2013).
This initiative stemmed from a USD 60 million investment, pledged by both institutions (Solomon, 2012). It was asserted by Solomon (2012) that Harvard and MIT envisioned edX to augment on-campus education at both institutions whilst concurrently making Harvard and MIT education available to anyone with an Internet connection.
Allison, et al. (2012) posited EdX as:
- A strategic platform for the creation and dissemination of online learning and knowledge resources.
78 - A research initiative that will create large amounts of data reflecting the interaction of
students with online knowledge resources.
- A strategic method of satisfying the worldwide educational missions of its founding institutions.
- A strategic resource that will complement ‘residential learning at its founding institutions (Harvard and MIT), along with other institutions that join the initiative.
EdX builds on both of the universities’ online pedagogical content and the technological platform is designed to deliver online versions of courses which includes video lessons, quizzes, student-ranked questions and answers, online laboratories, student-paced learning and immediate feedback mechanisms, (Allen and Longbrake, 2012). The MIT President, Susan Hockfield asserted that EdX would help both institutions to increase the vitality of their universities in a more effective and creative way whilst simultaneously increasing educational opportunities for learners and teachers across the world (Solomon, 2012).
Similarly, Harvard president, Drew Faust, conveyed that that EdX would give both institutions an unparalleled opportunity to radically extend their educational reach by conducting state-of-the-art research into effective and quality online education (Allen and Longbrake, 2012). This research, coupled by new technology will create a new culture of online learning that will benefit many across the nation and the globe (Allen and Longbrake, 2012).
Even though EdX has just emerged, it ran its first course, from MIT, in Circuits and Electronics which totalled approximately 155 000 registrations. Learners were from almost 160 countries which included United States of America, India, London, Columbia, Spain, Pakistan, Canada, Brazil, Greece and Mexico (Daniel, 2012). Approximately 10 000 learners passed the course as whole which included a 15-year-old learner from Mongolia who attained a reasonably high score in the final exam (Daniel, 2012). The abovementioned ‘Online Justice course’ by Michael Sandel is also the first course in the Humanities discipline to be listed on MIT-Harvard EdX online platform (Friedman, 2013). An abundance of courses are currently freely available from both Harvard and MIT and many other universities that have recently joined EdX (edX, 2013). It should also be noted that EdX is a non-profit initiative and is said to improve, and not replace, the traditional campus based learning (Allen and Longbrake, 2012).
79 In regard to the future direction of MOOCs holistically, Educause (2011) sees MOOCs as an emerging model with benefits and challenges. However, as it evolves, methods of presentation would become more consistent and predictable. It is highly possible that MOOCs may become the most effective outreach pedagogical tool to engage learners from all over the world (Educause, 2011). In addition, as MOOCs embrace the future, the scale on which courses can be taught and the diversity of students they serve will allow institutions to tread on new terrain by opening their content globally and extending their reach into almost every community (McAuley, et al., 2010; Educause, 2011).
2.24 Dearth of KM/e-Learning/Web.2.0 research in Higher Education in Africa (The