14 February 2019

Research pick: Massive open online courses (MOOCs) - "Advancing teaching with massive open online courses: a review of case studies"

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been widely adopted by higher education institutions for teaching more widely on-campus courses. Writing in the International Journal of Innovation and Learning, a team from Hong Kong explain how they have carried out case studies and examined best practice for running a MOOC.

Kam Cheong Li and Billy Tak-Ming Wong of The Open University of Hong Kong, Ho Man Tin, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China, demonstrated three principles that can help with the development and ongoing maintenance of MOOCs. First, the division of labour in the implementation of a MOOC is important. Secondly, technology must be used effectively. Finally, a MOOC must be adaptable so that a course might be redesigned based on teacher and learner experience with the MOOC. They point out that there are many diverse ways in which MOOCs have been implemented on-campus, specifically.

MOOCs allow huge numbers of students to participate in a course at the same time in far greater numbers than is possible with a conventional on-campus lecture and tutorial approach to teaching. It has also been demonstrated in the past that MOOCs can be used to improve accessibility, equity and inclusiveness of education given that many people might be excludes from a conventional course for any number of reasons depending on personal circumstances and geopolitics of a particular campus.
“Following the trend of adopting online technology for teaching in higher educational institutions, this study illustrates how ‘online technology can be used to deliver hybrid courses with reduced class time without compromising student outcomes’,” the team concludes.

Li, K.C. and Wong, B.T-M. (2019) ‘Advancing teaching with massive open online courses: a review of case studies‘, Int. J. Innovation and Learning, Vol. 25, No. 2, pp.141-155.

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