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“A hostage to fortune” – Validating Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for University Credit
Peter Alston and Ben Brabon
can participate for free and then at that point [where they
want credit], you would pay and that would be the point
where these problems would kick in if the numbers were
above 300”.
Ben’s hesitance to use computerised assessment was
that he did not think it “suits the humanities discipline”. He
believed his approach was better suited as it “flies in the
face of convention” for MOOCs and the use of computerised
assessment contributes to low completion rates
since they adopt a “stand-off” approach. Andy (Psychology
background) again pressed home the issue of scalability
and asked if it was possible to put a limit on students
paying for credit: “I’ve just worked out, and please take
this seriously, assuming 300 students each submit a ten
minute presentation (assuming the kept to time), that is
over 50 hours solid. That’s over two days, not allowing
for sleep, eating or anything else” (Andy). Ben believed
that this was manageable, but that would be his upper
limit: “You can spread 50 hours; it could be a four-week
turn around [for marking]. I’m happy with that scale of
assessment because at Level 4, not much of an onus on
cross marking although we do sample, so I don’t see that
as a problem”. Steve (background in English and also Ben’s
line manager) was very supportive, suggesting “the more
students that opt to go for credit the more money is in the
pot, therefore the more we can use to staff it”. It was clear
that Ben considered his module to be similar to others
delivered at the university and by suggesting a maximum
of 300 students he wanted to provide assurances to the
panel.
Student Engagement
One of the features of the assessment in the module was
that students would be required to actively comment on
each other’s blog, which Ben had used before. There was
some confusion though over how students would actively
engage with the process: “What if they don’t get anyone
commenting on their blog” (Daniel). “That’s a good question!
I think that’s where I have to have a role in this and ensure
there is a spread of commentary across all the blogs
[refers to previous examples where a couple of students
did not have comments]” (Ben). “[Doesn’t that] give a dissatisfied
feeling in terms of their experience” (Daniel). “I
can see where you are going with this; you obviously want
30,000 students doing assessment [and] it could happen,
but I’d be surprised if it did. I don’t think it’s a problem if
everyone didn’t get commentary [because] they’re not
being assessed on receiving commentary; they’re being
assessed on providing commentary on other blogs” (Ben).
Daniel also raised a concern about how students would
participate in the discussion sessions each week, with students
expected to engage in the two 1 hour webinars each
week: “I’m really worried about that. I ran with small numbers
of only about 80 students with asynchronous discussion
boards and students got demotivated because there
were so many posts from so many people they couldn’t be
bothered to read/do things” (Daniel). Ben responded by
explaining the approach he had adopted with the Level 5
version of the module: “I literally had detailed worksheets
for the sessions [and] students literally worked their way
through a session. There were obviously initial responses
to the lecture, but then there were tasks which structured
the discussion so all the threads of a discussion were
hinged on four or five other threads”.
Delivery Platform & Capacity to Approve
When Ben first devised the module, he wanted to make
use of the university’s virtual learning environment (VLE)
as the delivery platform. Before the event, Peter had offered
to find out if the VLE could ‘stand up’ to supporting
the MOOC and spoke to the team responsible: “The initial
response was yes, but quickly a no as well [laughing
from group] and this was because of numbers. One thing
they did say is that the VLE provider hosted large courses,
which can have guest accounts and [I] was going to ask if
they could host this. Ben and I have already discussed the
alternatives, as the idea of a MOOC is to be open and free,
and use your own platforms, write content anywhere and
share. [We had already] suggested using WordPress for
the blogs and YouTube for uploading podcasts” (Peter).
“And I’ve already used Edublogs [in pilot study for another
project] so I don’t think it’s beyond my skills to go to a
WordPress option” (Ben). Daniel was a little hesitant at
this stage, suggesting that a more concrete decision had
to be made at this point: “Ok, so you’ve said that this is
what you could do, but this is a specific proposal that the
university is putting its stamp on, so what are you going
to do”.
Ben admitted he wanted to use the VLE for delivery, but
it had never been tested to support large numbers of students.
Daniel asked how students would register and pay
on such a course, whilst Andy was worried about the uncertainty
in delivery and asked Laura (the Chair) what they
could actually do: “I wanted pay linked to each assignment.
I don’t know whether that is possible, will have to discuss
with higher management [outside of panel]. I’d like it that
way; free at the point of entry then [for] CW1 you pay a
percentage, same for CW2 […] I think it comes down to
two things; how much are we going to charge and is [VLE]
happy for it to go this way; or, do we go with the alternative
option. I think there are practical issues that are in
part informed by the business model, how much it will cost
and how it’s going to be handled” (Ben). Andy inquired as
to whether the panel where in a position to approve such a
module given the uncertainties around the delivery. Laura
quickly responded: “We can approve [based] on the information
we actually have, but just subject to the delivery
being sorted out by a particular date”.
Ben again attempted to provide some reassurance,
suggesting that if this was a module modification, then he
“wouldn’t be asked these questions [and] there’s no reason
why this shouldn’t work in the same way”. Daniel re-
Experience Track |180