a bit about MOOCs:past, present and future

Alan DixTalis and University of Birmingham

http://alandix.com/academic/talks/uxday-2017/

Tiree

Tiree Tech Wave23-27 March 2017

University ofBirmingham

today I am not talking about …

• intelligent internet interfaces• visualisation and sampling• small device – large display interactions• fun and games, virtual crackers,

artistic performance, slow time• physicality and product design• creativity and Bad Ideas• modelling dream, regret,

the emergence of self

… or even lots of lights

http:/www.hcibook.com/alan/projects/firefly/

REFanalysis

musicologydata

open data islands &

communities

Alan walksWales OR …

Mathieu Plourde {(Mathplourde on Flickr) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/8620174342/sizes/l/in/photostream/

first MOOC?

Sept/ 2011, Sebastian Thrun’s Intro. to Artificial Intelligence160,000 signups

… but for what?

TAs doing assessment … but issues of accreditation

filmed in his basement …

… and then …

benefits

brand awareness (overseas student recruitment)

development consultancy (platform providers)

democratisation of education (… but who pays?)

sustainable?

use?

‘drop out’ often 90-99%but does that matter?success as accomplishing own

goalsN.B. FutureLearn and P2PU a lot better

democratisation?most students graduates and

western

life before the MOOC?

… before the MOOC

let’s have a go

online HCI course

ran early 2013to gain experience

with ‘MOOCs’and reusable materials

now hosted at OER siteinteraction-design.org

Human–ComputerInteraction

low cost productiontalk-over slides + head & shoulders video + additional resources

development ~ 3–4 months

~ 25 hours video

academic sharing quality

reuse in flip / blended learning

Autumn 2014 coursemix of UG3 & MScportion of course (4 weeks)mixing video with face-to-face

Spring 2015 coursemasters students onlysingle session

different mixes

basics + integrationpreparatory videos on ‘basics’ followed by integrative lecture (chalk & talk!)

2 fully flippedvideos followed by discoursive F2Fvideos followed by group discussions

2 part & partall material on video, some also taught in class N.B. noticable attendance fall-off when told in advance!

70 students

20 students

Talis lighthouse pilot

universal player

micro-analytics … individual course resource student

analytics – who read/viewed whattypically about 1/3 watch everything, 1/3 some, 1/3 none at all!

used stats to ‘encourage’ students in class

N.B. did not look at individual student analytics

students did not seemphased by this level of analytics

analytics – how much

journal paper PDFrecommended reading

most students just read beginning

in class explained structure of paper

every one loves a MOOC(well they did in 2013!)

but what does it cost?

Effort: Glasgow University FutureLearn

Two courses:Right vs Might

360 hours academic + 800 hrs learning technologist (development only)2.5 hours of video + supporting resources656 participants (first run)

Genomics 2236 hours academic (development only)6 hours video + supporting resources747 participants (first run)

Source: Building and Executing MOOCs: A practical review of Glasgow’s first two MOOCsJ. Kerr, S. Houston, L. Marks, A. Richford (2015)

Comparison

• MOOCs– 400 hours development time per hour video– 700 participants per run (time amortised)– £29 statement of participation (~15% takeup)

• Traditional Classroom– 2–4 hours preparation per hour lecture– 50-200 students per lecture (time repeated)– £9000 fees (for ~ 200-300 hours lectures)

Bottom line

MOOCs vs classroom

10 times as many students

100 times the effort

1/30 payment / student–hour

other estimates?

$39K to $325K per MOOC$74-$272 per completer

Source: Resource Requirements and Costs of Developing and Delivering MOOCs. Hollands and Tirthali (2014)

Udacity ~ $200K per courseEdX ~ $250K design + $50K per run

Source: Why MOOCs Aren't So Cheap ... for Colleges. Fiscal Times (2013)

High quality video ~ $4K per hour (1)

~ $2.5K–10K per minute (2)

Source: (1) MOOCs: Expectations and Reality Hollands and Tirthali (2014)

(2) What does a corporate web video cost? Fox (2010)

massive

does size matter?

what is scale?

Seminar – 10s of students

Lecture – 100s of students

MOOC – 10,000s of students

… but …

1 0 0 million new tertiary students

every year

face to face learning …

growth … total tertiary students

2010 – 180 million

2025 – 260 million

40%

face to facelearning

is @ scale

Talis Aspire Reading List

store and structure course resources

embedded in VLE

connects with course management and learning analytics

Talis Aspire Reading Lists … scale …

Talis lighthouse pilot

universal player

micro-analytics … individual course resource student

scaleup and down

reuse offline?

reuse and online ’content’

online ‘content delivery’:senior mgt pressure since 1990sprincipally for cost saving!

reuse:LOs, SCORM, Tin-Can APIwe all know it’s good in HE use still limited

Jorum

https://pixabay.com/en/headstone-cemetery-grave-graveyard-312540/http://iwantmyanime.deviantart.com/art/Stork-Commission-180796355

small is beautiful

video length:often suggested 4 mins or even 2 minssmaller resources improve engagement (Ferriday)

we saw 10 mins OK but 20 mins too long

=> need better ways to create, edit and manage smaller videos

both for in-class and flipped use

small things matter

already added end as well as start times in Player

maybe need better fade-in – fade-out for audio

sharing portions not just whole videos

narrative matters

all digital?

semantic textbook – data meets text

book

MCQsvideos

slides

learning analytics

big data for education

MOOC scale

lots of studentsfollowing the same course

large volumes of homogeneous data

heterogeneitycourses andinstitutions

individualitylearning styles

patterns of viewing

cross-institutionalissues

ownership and privacy

abstracting heterogeneity ?individual traces classes of behaviour

big data analysis pedagogic feedback

reality more complex

… and very messy

lots of work still to do!

both user and researcher

~ 3 ½ mins

skim to page 21

1 min skim to page 14

50 secs on pages 14&15

25 secs on

page 21

skim to end

in summary

MOOCs (potential) benefits… but costly … sustainability?

face to face is also massive!(re)use MOOC-like material in class?

analytics of heterogeneity

beer …