© University of Reading School of Systems Engineering April 10, 2015 Are MOOCs providing the European workforce with necessary web skills? Dr. Tharindu Liyanagunawardena

2 MOOCs for Web Talent Report Should MOOCs mimic University courses or offer practical training? – theory is necessary for practical training – Begin Programming: build your first mobile game on FutureLearn – – Offering practical training in MOOCs is difficult Various hardware/ software combinations Range of skill levels There will be people who would not like your course! Liyanagunawardena,TR., Lundqvist.KO. & Williams, SA. (2015). Who are with us: MOOC learners on a FutureLearn course, British Journal of Educational Technology – Special issue on MOOCs (forthcoming)

Business Models Universities cannot sustain offering MOOCs for free – Require content updates (especially in Computer Science) – Facilitation, staff time Will HAVE TO look into self sustain Small Private Online Courses? Content for free and charging for additional services? 3

Quality of MOOCs Quality of Learning Experience will vary widely on individual factors Quality of Learning materials/facilitation can be assured with correct measures At University of Reading – Working Group on Quality Assurance and Enhancement for Open Online Courses (OOCs) This brings layered QA for University of Reading MOOCs School level – teaching materials MOOC team – coherence of materials and UoR feel University level– oversight of all UoR MOOCs FutureLearn 4

Instructional Quality Margaryan, A., Bianco, M., & Littlejohn, A. (2014) Instructional quality of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), Computers & Education, 80, pp MOOCs – 50 xMOOCs, 26 cMOOCs Assessed the instructional design quality of MOOCs – using key criteria based upon First Principles of Instruction  Problem Centred, Activation, Demonstration, Application, Integration Range of score 0-72 (0 none of the principles reflected, 72 all reflected) MOOCs overall 0–28 points (median 9; mode 6; StD 5.93) xMOOCs range 3–25 points (median 8; mode 6; StD 4.46) cMOOCs range 0–28 (median 11; mode 9; StD 7.24). 5

Expectations MOOCs work well – Digital literacy, self directed learning For Programming MOOCs – Additionally perseverance “ I spent a week (A WEEK!) beating my head against my desk trying to figure out why the ball wouldn't deflect off of my smiley face. Then, tonight, I finally realized that my collision detection was only happening if mBallSpeedY > 0, meaning that if the ball wasn't going down, nothing was ever going to happen. After changing that, and making a few other adjustments, I feel like a new man ready to take on the world!” 6

Thank you 7 Dr. Tharindu R. Liyanagunawardena Call for abstracts open: deadline 24th Nov