Glocal MOOCs

  by AlmaArte Photography

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Similarly we can offer MOOC students discussion forums but we can't make them discuss. The topic of learner engagement in online courses (not just MOOCs) has been a recurring theme over the last twenty years and it's clear that meaningful discussions don't just happen, they need to be nurtured and managed. Simply providing a space to comment leads to either complete silence or streams of unconnected random comments ranging from supportive to abusive and distasteful.

In online education students are generally reluctant to participate in discussion forums unless there is a clear value in doing so. Discussions work when there is a limited number of participants who already have a sense of community and trust and where the purpose of discussion is clear to all. In a MOOC where there are thousands of participants the forums become crowded, disorganised and above all daunting for newcomers. A post on the site MOOC Lab, Why MOOC forums fail to deliver highlights another factor inhibiting MOOC forums:

The forums also tend to be dominated by a small group of avid participants, isolating the “masses” who feel too intimidated to join the conversation. The percentage of students registered on a course who participate in the forums is minute.

How can we create learning communities in a course with thousands of participants? One gigantic forum for all clearly doesn't work but it's also extremely difficult to herd participants into smaller discussion groups. That was tried with disastrous effects by Georgia Tech on their aborted course Fundamentals of Online Learning a couple of years ago. They tried to get participants to form smaller study groups; a noble plan but a case of trying to herd cats. Since then many other universities have been grappling with the same problem but rewarding discussion doesn't seem to scale.

David Hopkins (Learner engagement in MOOCs) suggests designing MOOCs with a rolling schedule with a new group starting each week.

Instead of having a MOOC that runs twice a year with 10,000 learners each cohort, would it be better suited to run every week with 2-300 learners each week? The learners would progress with those other learners who started in the same time frame as them, therefore building more meaningful relationships with their fellow learners. 

This would avoid the chaos of mass forums but there is still the problem of organisation. It's hard enough running a standard 6 week MOOC but starting a new one each week would add to the university's costs and there is still the problem of how to foster meaningful discussion even in these smaller forums.  Someone has to manage the discussion. Someone has to lead the way, keep the discussion on track, encourage and question. Uncertain participants need to feel that their contributions are welcome and that it's safe to enter the discussion. Faculty are unlikely to have time to manage these discussions so maybe students could be recruited to do so. As long as there is someone who clearly manages and can establish trust among the participants.

What we're all searching for is a way to combine scale with intimacy. Can we design glocal MOOCs combining the advantages of education at scale with a sense of community and small group discussion? What sort of scaffolding and forum management can be provided without significant expense. Could local actors like further education colleges and libraries be involved in creating a local context to global courses? I'm sure it's possible but it will require opening up the MOOC concept outside the confines of the host university or consortium. Universities can't provide all the support themselves so why not open up the concept and allow others to contribute? MOOCs need an open API so that other actors can build support services, offer local variations, translate content and so on. Then maybe we can see open education really taking off.