Presented at the 2016 ICED & HELTASA Conference, Cape Town.

1. Can MOOCs offer useful support
for students in transition?
Experiences from the UCT MOOCs Project
Andrew Deacon, Janet Small & Sukaina Walji
Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching
University of Cape Town
24 November 2016
ICED & HELTASA Conference, Cape Town

2. Outline
• What are MOOCs?
• As conceived
• UCT MOOCs Project
• Course landscape in higher education
• As used to support students in transitions
• UCT created MOOCs
• Using MOOCs to support students

3. Massive
• Have many
thousands
participating
Open
• Open to
anyone with
an internet
connection
Online
• Everything is
online
Course
• Course is
organised to
support
learning
M O O C

4. MOOCs occupy ‘in between’ spaces
which are neither formal nor informal but draw on both the skills of formal
learning and the informal identities that have a kind of authenticity
(Farrow, 2014)
Traditional formal
courses
MOOCs
Informal learning
from books, web, …
Expect high
engagement, but
small numbers
reached
Lower engagement,
with large numbers
reached
https://philosopher1978.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/liveblog-catherine-cronin-keynote-at-altc-altc2014/

5. MOOC platforms & university partners
2 1
UCT - Coursera &
FutureLearn
Wits – edX
Stellenbosch –
FutureLearn
Around 250
universities have
partnered with these
three MOOC platform

6. UCT MOOCs Project
• Develop 12 MOOCs
• Research educators’ open educational practices

7. As conceived

8. Goals of the UCT MOOCs Project
• To showcase the teaching and research excellence of UCT
• To give exposure to African content and knowledge
• To profile key postgraduate programmes and research areas
aligned with the university’s strategic goals
• To support students in academic transitions
• To make UCT’s knowledge resources globally accessible
• To develop models and expertise in online learning that
could be deployed in mainstream degree programmes

9. Interest in supporting transitions
• Rise in interdisciplinary programmes
• Academically generally well prepared
• Students from other disciplines don’t know context
• Pressure to admit more students
• Varying levels of academic and research preparedness
• Students without some core skills
• Show study opportunities
• Lack awareness of fields of study and opportunities
• Students unaware of study and career options

10. e.g. Short courses
Global Citizenship
Write Science courses
e.g. most degree programmes

11. Showcase teaching and
introduce topics with high-
profile ‘rockstar’
presenters
Introduce fields and
support students in
undergraduate study
Develop skills and
introduce topics for
postgraduate study.
Showcase research and
special interest topics
of interest to
postgraduate level
Showcase professional careers
for continuing education and
qualifications
Inwardly focused
gateway and
transition courses
Outwardly focused
showcase courses

12. As it happened

13. Becoming a
changemaker:
Introduction to
Social Innovation
Climate Change
Mitigation in
Developing
Countries
Education for All:
Disability, Diversity
and Inclusion
Julia Scientific
Programming
Medicine and the
Arts: Humanising
Healthcare
Understanding
Clinical Research:
Behind the
Statistics
What is a Mind?

14. Cases with support for transitions
1. UCT created ‘gateway’ courses
• Postgraduate research skills
• Undergraduates’ writing skills
2. Facilitating or wrapping existing MOOCs
• Study groups to support postgraduates
• UCT MOOCs being used elsewhere

15. Understanding Clinical Research

16. 29%
5%
15%
2%
25%
24%
Understanding Clinical Research
Overall
Coursera has
5% African
learners

17. Understanding Clinical Research
Juan, thanks for making your wonderful
understanding of statistics available in such an
approachable and well-presented format. I am
encouraging all Paediatric Surgery registrars and
other colleagues at Red Cross to do the course! You
have made a complex and confusing field a lot less
so. Looking forward to your next Coursera course!

18. Understanding Clinical Research

19. Understanding Clinical Research

20. Understanding Clinical Research

21. Writing Your World:
finding yourself in an academic space
• Week 1: Starting to write
understanding definitions of identity
• Week 2: Developing an argument
shifting identities
• Week 3: Supporting the argument
situating identity within culture
• Week 4: Starting to finish
writing the first draft

22. UCT Office for Postgraduate Studies
• Supporting students in transition
• Workshops, seminars and open online courses for UCT
postgraduate students
• Supporting research, writing and quantitative skills
• MOOCs cheaper than traditional courses
• MOOC wrapping - where facilitators additionally:
• Provides a social space for postgraduates
• Contextualise and clarify content
• Encourage and motivate students

23. UCT Office for Postgraduate Studies

24. UCT student on wrapped MOOCs
• “The course has had a huge implication for me and has
now altered the route of my thesis and where I project
myself in the long haul of life”
• “It has been truly helpful! I wanted to tell you that I
won best poster presentation at the School of Public
Health's annual research day, so thank you - I could not
have done without your help”
• “For me I would say the most important and interesting
thing I have learned is R-programming, because I didn't
know how to use it before”

25. UCT MOOCs used elsewhere
• Wrapped (e.g., with additional student essay)
• Reuse of materials (e.g., to show videos)
• Translated (e.g., into Spanish)
• Community mentors (i.e., volunteer tutors)
© University of Cape Town CC-BY

26. Conclusions
• MOOC strengths
• Students appreciate it (run with minimal monitoring)
• Scale easily (reaching a global audience)
• Helps us understand contexts of students in transition
• MOOC weakness
• But students in transition remain uncomfortable
• Limited individual support and feedback
• Not for everyone and not enough
• MOOC opportunities
• Use by others (enroll, flip, wrap, reuse, …)

27. Project References
• Czerniewicz, L, Deacon, A, Glover, M, Walji, S. (2017) MOOC-making and
open educational practices, Journal of Computing in Higher Education.
• Czerniewicz, L, Glover, M, Deacon, A, Walji, S. (2016) MOOCs, openness
and changing educator practices: an Activity Theory case study.
Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Networked
Learning.
• Walji, S, Deacon, A, Small, J, Czerniewicz, L. (2016) Learning through
engagement: MOOCs as an emergent form of provision. Distance
Education, 37(2):208-223.
• Chapman, SA, Goodman, S, Jawitz, J, Deacon, A. (2016) A strategy for
monitoring and evaluating massive open online courses. Evaluation and
Program Planning, 57(August):55–63.
• Czerniewicz, L, Deacon, A, Small, J, Walji, S. (2014) Developing world
MOOCs: A curriculum view of the MOOC landscape. Journal of Global
Literacies, Technologies, and Emerging Pedagogies, 2(3):122-139.