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The EPFL MOOC Factory
Patrick Jermann, Gwenaël Bocquet, Gilles Raimond and Pierre Dillenbourg
Abstract: We describe the MOOC production process and studio design rationale that was developed
over a one-year operation of the EPFL MOOC factory, a colloquial denomination for the MOOC
production activity of the Center for Digital Education (CEDE) at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de
Lausanne (EPFL). Based on our experience, we propose key figures and design guidelines, which could
help other universities to set up a production and support center for MOOCs.
Introduction
We are the Center for Digital Education (CEDE), a unit of
the central administration under the vice-presidency for
Information Systems at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale
de Lausanne (EPFL). Our mission is to accompany and
support the production and delivery of Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs) for EPFL. In this contribution, we
report our experience in producing 14 MOOCs over the
past twelve months.
At the time of writing, EPFL has a catalogue of 25
MOOCs. Our first MOOC was online in September 2012,
four additional MOOCs were produced in February 2013
and nine more are starting during Fall 2013. Two courses
are not open to the public for their first issue. We are
planning ten more courses for 2014 and plan to have 19
MOOCs hosted on the www.coursera.org platform, and
six MOOCs on the www.edx.org platform by the end of
the year.
We start this account with a general description of the
production process, and then focus on the video production
and studio design although this corresponds only to
a part of the development work in a MOOC. The second
part of the development work, which we do not address
here in detail, consists of developing assignments and
tests as well as integrating the MOOC with on-campus
teaching.
Production process
It takes six months from the acceptance of a MOOC by
the editorial committee and the opening of the course.
During this period the course has to be designed, advertised
and produced. We describe each phase and summarize
the timing of the production process in Table 1.
Project selection
At EPFL, professors submit a project for evaluation to the
MOOC Editorial Committee (step 1 in Table 1). An editorial
committee with representatives from each of the
five schools reviews the projects. Criteria for acceptation
include the scientific standing and teaching record of the
applicants as well as the financial and technical feasibility
of the course. After a positive decision, professors get
support from the Center for Digital Education to develop
their course and can hire an assistant from their domain
to help them design and run the course.
Course design
The production of a MOOC starts with a design phase
(step 2 in Table 1). From an instructional designer’s point
of view, the goal of this phase is to establish a sequence
of learning activities that will enable students to reach
given learning objectives. In reality, professors often see
course design in a pragmatic way that consists of adapting
the content and material they already have, to produce a
set of video sequences. However, the MOOC lecture format
imposes constraints on timing and format that “force”
teachers to rethink their existing lecturing practice and
offers an opportunity to redesign the course material.
Teachers quickly realize that the preparation of the material
for the MOOC involves an in-depth revision of their
course. Some of them propose to produce a MOOC precisely
because they want to revise their course.
Lecture design consists of segmenting the course into
7 (or 14) weeks that each has a specific structure. For instance,
in our introductory physics course, a MOOC week
features 2-3 video units on theory, 1 video unit about an
experiment and 1 video unit with an invited lecturer who
speaks about the application of the basic concepts in research.
The creation of small video units of 7-15 minutes
that cover 1 concept at the time requires a redesign of the
content. When explanations and developments do not fit
into less than 30 minutes teachers are invited to record
two separate parts.
An important constraint comes with the 16:9 format of
the video lecture that is used as well for by the cameras
as for the presentation slides. This wide format is especially
well suited to present complementary representations
side-by-side (in two adjacent square regions). For
instance, we encourage professors to start explanations
with a figure on one side and to write the corresponding
explanations on the other side while giving explanations.
Experience Track |228