Learning Management in Massive Open Online Courses: MOOCs

Learning Management in Massive Open Online Courses: MOOCs

Tapan Kumar Basantia, Vishal Kumar
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 14
DOI: 10.4018/IJDLDC.2021010101
OnDemand:
(Individual Articles)
Available
$37.50
No Current Special Offers
TOTAL SAVINGS: $37.50

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are the unconventional and latest means of education in the present society. MOOCs are the strong alternative to traditional education and latest development in the area of open and distance learning. MOOCs are the online courses which are delivered with little rigidity in place of learning, time of learning, pace of learning, etc. Learning management in MOOCs is one of the prime features of MOOCs that helps for the delivery of MOOCs. Learning management in MOOCs plays a vital role for the success of MOOCs. The stakeholders of MOOCs must be well conversant with different aspects of learning management in MOOCs for achieving the success of the MOOCs. Referring to these contexts, in the present paper, thematic discussions have been made on different aspects of learning management in MOOCs. In the paper, special emphasis in discussion is given on different components of learning management in MOOCs, learning management in different platforms of MOOCs, and issues in learning management in MOOCs.
Article Preview
Top

Introduction

Rapid advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have touched every facet of our life including education. ICT is used to enrich the system of both formal and non-formal education. Formal education is mainly imparted in the conventional universities, colleges, schools, etc. whereas non-formal education is imparted in the distance education institutions, open learning centers, etc. The use of ICT in formal education improves the teaching-learning process of the education by adding the liveliness in the process whereas the advancement of ICT acts as a significant medium for making the delivery process of non-formal education system possible and/or successful. Initially, distance education was operated through the use of study material sent by post (Sriram, 2015; Siemens, 2013; Casey, 2008). But, after the use of ICT in distance education, distance education institutions started to initiate e-content delivery. After the success of e-content delivery and its usefulness in distance education, many formal and non-formal educational institutions started to deliver e-content in the form of open educational resources (OER). Open educational resources were spreading rapidly across the world after 2001 (Sclater, 2009), which helped to start an era of open online education and massive online learning (Xiong and Suen, 2018). A recent development in the area of distance education and e-learning is Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) (Kesim and Altinpulluk, 2015). MOOCs are online courses which use web-based tools and environments to deliver online classes without restricting the geographical boundaries and time zone, and do not restrict admission either in terms of the number of learners or their educational qualifications (Voss, 2013; Liyanagunawardena, Adams and Williams, 2013). MOOCs are defined as massive, because technically there is no limit on how many learners can sign up a course at the same time under the MOOCs. Those are open in terms of access, regardless of the educational qualification required. All the learning processes in MOOCs, i.e., lectures, quizzes, tutorials, debates, assessments, etc. are performed online. In some instances, the course coordinator conducts meet-up and it is used as a part of flipped classroom where students view lecture materials at home to participate in further activities and discussion. Generally, MOOCs have a set start and stop time and are offered by the recognized learning institutions with structured and sequenced learning content. So, those are treated as Courses (Olin, 2015; Siemens, 2013). Dave Cormier (University of Prince Edward Island, Prince Edward Island, Canada) and Bryan Alexander (National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, Washington DC, USA) first introduced the term Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in 2008 in reference to a course called ‘Connectivism and Connective Knowledge/2008’ (often referred to as CCK8) which was started by George Siemens and Stephen Downes (Pike and Gore, 2018; Weller, 2014). George Siemens (2013), one of the pioneers of the MOOCs phenomenon, has summarized three formats of MOOCs based on different pedagogical foundation and organisational models, namely connectivist or ‘cMOOCs’, extended or ‘xMOOCs’ and quasi-MOOCs whereas Kesim and Altinpulluk (2015) refer to cMOOCs as connectivist MOOCs as well as Canadians MOOCs (because the creators of the MOOCs are Canadian researchers) and xMOOCs are referred as Coursera type MOOCs. In the current situation, xMOOCs have become dominant MOOCs type, though the first MOOCs were cMOOCs (Stewart, 2013). Quasi-MOOCs are defined as web based tutorial in forms of open educational resources and those are technically not courses because those are a pack of loosely linked open education resources.

Complete Article List

Search this Journal:
Reset
Volume 15: 1 Issue (2024): Forthcoming, Available for Pre-Order
Volume 14: 1 Issue (2023)
Volume 13: 4 Issues (2022): 2 Released, 2 Forthcoming
Volume 12: 4 Issues (2021)
Volume 11: 2 Issues (2020)
Volume 10: 4 Issues (2019)
Volume 9: 4 Issues (2018)
Volume 8: 4 Issues (2017)
Volume 7: 4 Issues (2016)
Volume 6: 4 Issues (2015)
Volume 5: 4 Issues (2014)
Volume 4: 4 Issues (2013)
Volume 3: 4 Issues (2012)
Volume 2: 4 Issues (2011)
Volume 1: 4 Issues (2010)
View Complete Journal Contents Listing