MOOCs
An increasing number of universities around the globe produce and conduct Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). (Janssen & Stohr, 2015). The literature study highlighted the rapid growth in interest in understanding MOOCs and seeking to understand the most relevant pedagogic frameworks to their adoption and the importance of the concept of openness embodied within them. More recently a new emphasis has been emerging where institutional factors, particularly those concerned with financial viability, certification and retention have been highlighted. (Martínez et al, 2014).
The MOOC aim to increase the learners’ capacity to appreciate the complexity of sustainability issues and to apply thinking and critical reflection systems on the information flow in public media. The pedagogical approach attempts to emphasize interactivity among learners with a minimum of teacher involvement.
The character of the mass is one of the characteristics that defines MOOC, and is precisely what differentiates you from other experiences of e-Learning. In fact, Siemens (2012) indicates that when he and Downes got 2,300 students in their course network was when he really began to speak of courses in not only open, but also massive online.
The massive nature of the MOOC contribute some advantages to the learning process: 1. Interactivity with other learners. This is a traditional feature of teaching but in network is multiplied in the MOOC. The larger network participants, occur more possibilities for enriching connections for other students from anywhere in the world. How come, says the report Scopeo June 2013 (Vega Cruz, et al., 2013), MOOC allow you to connect with people who share the same interests or professional profiles, and from there to create new groups and to generate new ideas for future undertaken projects. 2. Promote the institution itself. One of the reasons for large Universities designing and implementing MOOC is that they can assume a kind of framework facing advertising potential students. (Sánchez, León & Hugs, 2015).
Rethinking the curriculum. As Yuan and Powell indicate (2013), the MOOC popularity can be assumed by universities in order to rethink how to develop the curriculum for more open and flexive models due to the massive nature of the courses. It’s important to highlight that an institution may go through a particular risk to face when designing a MOOC, with the possible failure of it, therefore, it is a concern for the quality and innovation that can be positive to improve educational quality of resources and educational processes.
But MOOC are also a critized phenomenon precisely because of the massive character and what this implies. Some of the problems that can occur are:
The triumph of “package content”. In the previously cited Innovation Department report in United Kingdom (2013) discusses how those most critical cases with MOOC indicate that the triumph of the MOOC imply a return to the early 90’s when education models were based in the “packaged content” network such as including digital content and good quality resources, but not transforming the educational process.
The problems of evaluation. With thousands of students, the evaluation may tend to be carried out through multiple choice tests. In other areas time is carried by trying to relax foster education online as “peer assessment” as in connective MOOC views, however, this strategy is also questionable and as Toole (2013) indicated, they are usually provided to enrolling students to evaluate a student, so more than Peer-assessment it should be nominated “peer- grading”.
The procedural evaluation is complicated when a high volume of students is evaluated. The difficulties of learning manage the provision of a course in network with thousands of students are not easy, as feedback becomes complicated with so many students participating in various tools (Prendergast & Sánchez, 2014)
Stated earlier, the mass registration is a characteristic of the MOOC, but it is also a Descent Participation what is Clow (2013) as “the funnel Participation”, explaining paragraph students loss process from those who are enrolled until the end who are rated between 5% and 15%, as the first research (Jordan, 2013; UTHSC, 2013; Daradounis et al., 2013).