{"id":487,"date":"2023-04-16T10:50:06","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T17:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/?p=487"},"modified":"2023-04-16T10:50:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T17:50:08","slug":"a-critical-look-into-moocs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/a-critical-look-into-moocs\/","title":{"rendered":"A critical look into MOOCs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries, by Opensource.com, 2011, December 22. Flickr (https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/opensourceway\/6555466069<\/a>). CC BY-SA 2.0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our newest course, Inquiry into Contemporary Issues in Learning Technologies, we are working with our team to discover, analyze, and critique a technology tool. Our group decided to focus on open educational resources (OER). OER are defined as public, educational resources that are free of cost, shareable, adaptable, and can be duplicated (UNESCO, 2018). This definition encompasses various materials, including tests, texts, courses, and lecture notes (UNESCO, 2018). Our group chose a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to analyze.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We collectively chose a course through OpenLearn (n.d.), a subset of The Open University. The system was easily accessible, with clear categories for course content that made it easy to search. When choosing a course, data such as time requirements, level of difficulty, and learning outcomes were clearly shown. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The course thus far has shown that it is accessible, mainly by offering many ways to engage with options like PDF versions, printable pages, Word documents, and Kindle pages. It also has videos, articles, and website hyperlinks, allowing students to view varied materials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fairly early into the course, however, I ran into a glitch. Two hyperlinks embedded in the notes were not working (page no longer found). This brings to light a key challenge with OER; maintaining the content. With thousands of courses available, how can the materials and resources be kept in working order? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an area of critical importance that I would like to delve into further; it would not simply be a maintenance issue, although that would undoubtedly be a part of it, but a more general analysis of quality assurance: who creates the materials? How are they vetted? What about accreditation? The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) (2016) has created a set of guidelines for quality assurance and certification for MOOCs which would make a good start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am also delving into OER for my personal critical analysis, focusing on K-12 schools. Here I would like to prioritize educator awareness and finding relevant materials to suit curriculum and instructional needs; this can also be seen as a quality assurance aspect. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I invite you to comment on your experiences with OER or MOOCs; what worked well for you? What do you think needs improvement? What are you curious about?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look forward to seeing what you would like to know about MOOCs and OER to help drive my research!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commonwealth of Learning.(2016). Guidelines for quality assurance and accreditation of MOOCs<\/em>. https:\/\/oasis.col.org\/colserver\/api\/core\/bitstreams\/da903d00-4d14-41d1-a30f-3834741904d7\/content<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Open University. (n.d.). OpenLearn. https:\/\/www.open.edu\/openlearn\/<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

UNESCO. (2018). Open educational resources.<\/em> https:\/\/www.unesco.org\/en\/open-educational-resources<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brigham Young University faculty survey seeks to advance open education through academic libraries, by Opensource.com, 2011, December 22. Flickr (https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/opensourceway\/6555466069). CC BY-SA 2.0 For our newest course, Inquiry into Contemporary Issues in Learning Technologies, we are working with our team to discover, analyze, and critique a technology tool. Our group decided to focus on open […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":273,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt526","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/273"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0263\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}