Can you get everyone to like your MOOC?

My last post started out as an idea for a compilation of random observations on course design, based on the Introduction to Linguistics MOOC on FutureLearn – a brief digression: I only just realized that the spelling seems to be with a capital L mid-word – but then it turned out to be a sort of introduction to the topic and an overall comment on what it felt like to be doing a course which you’ve joined when it’s practically over (spoiler alert: alone). I feel reasonably confident that this post will achieve what the last one was meant to because I already have a list of observations; I just have to flesh them out.

A bit of context first: this was apparently this MOOC’s first run. It’s a three-week course and the study time estimated per week is three hours, so not very demanding and overall in accordance with the course aims:

On this course, you’ll get an introduction to the main approaches used in linguistic research, including linguistic experiments and discourse analysis. You’ll find out about the key methods used in linguistic descriptions, and some of the everyday ‘myths’ about language. You’ll discover how linguistic researchers turn our ideas about language into linguistic knowledge.

There seemed to be two mentors/moderators – one lead educator and one educator, as FutureLearn calls them (or is it just this course?). Perhaps there were more, but I could only find the lead educator’s bio. They obviously kept an eye out on what was happening on the course, as there were several responses to participant comments; however, I got the impression that most of the commenting was done by the lead educator and am thinking that this is probably an indication that strong moderator involvement had not been planned, which again would be in line with the course aims.

Something to keep in mind as I move on to the observations: some of the features I comment on are present in other FutureLearn courses as well. Also, I should stress that this is in no way meant to be a dissection of the instructional design involved; just thoughts that popped into my head – in no particular order – from the viewpoint of having recently helped coordinate MOOC development.

Photo taken from ELTpics by @mk_elt, used under a CC BY-NC 2.0 license.

Videos

• Most were of the length that ensures you won’t drift off. Only one was around 9 minutes (and another one was 7), which I feel is too long although I have included a screencast of similar length in my own online course. This MOOC is heavily video-based and the videos are only occasionally interspersed with some other activities – for instance, one activity required participants to analyze two similar websites in the context of a theoretical framework presented in the previous step. Possibility: add some readings and tests (T/F, MCQs), but this could make the course appear more heavy going (arguably not in line with the course aims).
• There were several presenters in the videos and I liked the fact that for the most part they weren’t reading a prepared script – I thought it made them appear more passionate about their subject. Side note: if you read, you reduce the risk of getting mixed up or forgetting something and your delivery is likely to be smoother. I generally read in my own screencasts, but as the focus is not on me – I’m not on camera – I think I don’t sound too wooden.

Transcripts

• There is a transcript accompanying each video (in addition to subtitles), which is of course necessary for accessibility purposes (screen readers). What I thought wasn’t strictly necessary (but was definitely helpful and I liked it a lot) was that each transcript was broken up into a couple of paragraphs and the time was marked at the beginning of each one so you could navigate it more easily.
• Transcripts can also be downloaded as PDFs but the download isn’t forced – a pet peeve – so definitely thumbs up for this. Side note: I’m not a fan of transcripts because I find that if I read them, I’ll skip parts. If, on the other hand, I watch the video, I’ll force myself to slow down and focus on what the person is saying. This is also why I like audio books; they force me to adapt to the narrator and relax.

Discussions

• Each video is followed up by the option to discuss (as are all other activities). I think I like this – as opposed to, for instance, separate forum activities like in Moodle – because you end up with all the comments neatly sorted by activity. However, I did wonder what happens if you have a question or comment that would be better suited to a sort of general housekeeping forum. For example, if you’re wondering what the official starting date of the course was. 🙂 Or if software you were instructed to use in an activity didn’t work.
• Comments can be sorted by oldest, newest and most liked (my most frequent choice). If I think a comment would be useful to other participants I like it in the hope that this will make it visible to more people. You can also bookmark comments and follow mentors and participants, but I didn’t on this course.

Accessibility

• External links open in the same window, which I understand is a requirement of guidelines for web content accessibility. I think I will now stop advising people to tick the “open in new window” box – which I have sometimes done unsolicited to ELT bloggers, purely for the reason that I personally don’t like having to click back to return to the page I started from (I prefer to close the new window).

Activity completion

• Participants can mark each activity as done when they wish to; there are no requirements, for instance, to post a comment before a discussion activity is considered complete. This seems fair because, well, you may not have that much to say about a subject; however, what happens if someone decides to mark all their activities as done without having even looked at them? I wonder if that is any different if you upgrade – because I understand that you are then entitled to a certificate of completion. On the other hand, there are students – I speak from experience here – who have done the F2F equivalent of marking their activities as done with no engagement whatsoever (suffered through the sessions in silence) and they still got the final mark. But they had to take an exam.

Moderators

• I’ve already noted that as opposed to some MOOCs I’ve done, there wasn’t strong moderator involvement in this one and I assume this was intentional. I liked the way the moderators handled an issue that came up: the participants were asked to analyze a couple of extracts of spoken language. These extracts were almost completely punctuation free. The participants found this confusing and said so in the comments, so a note was added in a prominent place, explaining the thinking behind this. Side note: when I came along, the explanation had already been added, so as soon as I noticed the lack of punctuation I read the explanation and thought it had been there from the start. I found this small detail very helpful and reassuring, as it indicated the moderators’ online presence, even if they were keeping a low profile.
• The moderators’ responses to the participants’ comments were thoughtful and positive, which wasn’t a surprise. The reason I mention it is because I wonder if there’s some kind of bank with (beginnings of) responses to comments, especially if the participant seems to be upset about something and you’d like to set things right as quickly as possible.

Other activities

• A couple of activities were described as articles – as opposed to videos or discussions – but they’re a single paragraph in length, so this seems like a slightly odd choice of word.

Participants

• In already noted this in a response to Marc’s comment on my last post, but thought I would include it here as well because I was quite taken aback by the critical attitude of some of the participants. One of my firmer beliefs – not just related to course design – is that Croatians on the whole are more likely to criticize than offer unsolicited praise. You can imagine my surprise when I saw critical comments directed at some aspects of the course – and they hadn’t been posted by Croatians! I’m sure the course designers and/or moderators did not expect universal agreement and praise but I think disagreement or doubt can be expressed in a neutral tone, leaving room for the possibility that you’ve overlooked something. If nothing else, whoever it is you’re engaging with is more likely to offer a constructive response. (But that’s just me; I don’t have any research evidence to back this up.) For instance, if you notice that there is a spelling error, I think it’s more productive to simply point this out, rather than suggest that no one bothered to check the spelling. (This example from participant contributions has been modified to protect the overly direct). Anyway, I suppose this is my message to all course participants everywhere – if you think something has been overlooked, could’ve been explained more clearly or is unnecessary/incorrect, etc., please try to point this out in a constructive fashion. Thanks from course designers and moderators everywhere. 🙂

That’s it for this run of the course. A final observation I’m going to add is that FutureLearn has a very extensive FAQ bank, so some of the questions that participants may have and aren’t sure where to post them might already have been addressed there.

Although this topic isn’t related to language teaching, I hope it’s still useful to some extent. I’m hoping to be able to do another MOOC via a different provider, and possibly add to the observations here.

I’m curious what your perspective is on MOOC moderation. Are you happy to just get on with things, with only occasional moderator involvement, or do you prefer a stronger moderator presence? Thanks for reading!

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