What is Coursera

With more than 100,000,000 learners from around the world, massive open online courses (MOOCs) are a popular online learning resource. Because this type of online teaching and learning is relatively young, published MOOC research is not as voluminous as traditional educational research. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge is that best practices are not always clear, and there is not much MOOC research upon which to draw for specific instructional design strategies. The opportunity is to harness the power of MOOC platforms themselves to conduct research that examines and identifies effective digital pedagogy. In this chapter, the authors describe some of these challenges and opportunities. Specifically, they draw upon a multivariate experimental research study that examined the effects of pre-tests and feedback on learning and persistence in a MOOC. They offer practical implications that are related to study findings.