Post on 25-Aug-2018
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Anne Farewell Chemistry and Molecular Biology anne.farewell@cmb.gu.se
Developing a MOOC in Molecular Biology
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• Introduction to MOOCs • Published Experiences with MOOC development • MOOC in Molecular Biology
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What’s a MOOC?
• MOOCs are a form of automated online course that can
accommodate a large number of students • Massive, Open, Online Course
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MOOC • Course • What makes a MOOC a course rather than a web site with
information?
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MOOC • A course has a beginning and an endpoint • A course has a defined path/structure • A course has defined learning objectives • A course includes assessment and feedback
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MOOC • Online • Difference between an online course and a MOOC?
• No registration at the university • No hybrid courses/no meetings • No course credits/hp (at this moment)
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MOOC • Open • Various meanings and opinions
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MOOC • Open
• Anyone can enter, no prerequisites • Open content? No copyright, material can be reused • Collaborative • Path not well defined • Asynchronous
• Synchronous vs asynchronous
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Note: Synchronous vs asynchronous
• In online courses a synchronous activity might be, for example, all the students participating in a streamed lecture at the same time. Whereas asynchronous would be independent activities
• In a MOOC, synchronous means the course begins/ends on set dates. Asynchronous means students can join the course at any time and complete it at their own pace.
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MOOC • Massive • Course can be designed to accommodate as many students
as the computer servers can handle: 100, 1000, 100,000? • More students per lecturer than in a usual course. • Grading and almost feedback must be automated or otherwise
distributed (peer-grading, peer support)
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Why should a University give a MOOC?
• Aren’t we just giving away our resources?
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Why?
• Tredje Uppgiften/Third Mission • Science Outreach • Education of the general public is part our mandate • Education worldwide is a public good
• Continuing Education (Doctors, Nurses, Teachers)
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Why?
• Marketing • Visible, good MOOCs can increase the visibility and reputation
of a university • Recruitment of students • Positive effect on Research?
• Example: UW-La Crosse, developmental math
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Why?
• Resources
• MOOCs can be developed that supplement our university courses to be used as background, supplemental information/lectures or as part of a ‘flipped classroom’ strategy
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Why?
• Education Research
• MOOCs potentially provide much more data on how students interact with the content than is normally available. How much time a student spends in different activities, how they use different types of resources, etc…
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Where?
• A number of key decisions must be made to decide where a MOOC should be hosted in light of our aims – How much will it cost? – Who owns the material? – Do we have copyright clearance for all materials? – Will teachers get technical support in MOOC development? – Will our MOOC get enough visibility? – Is our MOOC in Swedish as well as English? – Will our MOOC reach the target students we want to reach? – Is the platform easy to use for the students?
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‘Private’ Hosting (e.g. GU web site)
– Pros: full control maximum branding
– Cons: expensive: need infrastructure, software and support Platform needs to be chosen/developed/maintained No ‘indirect’ advertising
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• Started October 2011 with 1 course • Opened for general public in April 2012 with 6 courses • Currently >5 million users, >600 courses • Lund has announced 3 MOOCs on Coursera in the Fall
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• Pros Well established Popular Support for most (all?) features
• Cons
For-profit organisation (Unclear how that will impact future relationship) ‘Openness’? Synchronous, courses closed from view after run except to participants Copyright?
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• MIT/Harvard’s MOOC platform • Begun 2012, but based on previous open source course site • 1 million registered students (June 2013) • Currently 34 institutions, most US but also Asia, EU, Australia • Karolinska has announced 4 MOOCs to begin late 2014.
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• Pros: – Non-profit – Established/well known platform – Alternative Course Formats allowed – Asynchronous and synchronous formats – Open source software and course materials
• Cons: – US Based, not EU – Costs? Support?
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• 2 million students (Jan 2014, 5 months after reaching 1M) • App has been downloaded 1 million times (Jan 2014) • 800 new courses per month (Jan 2014) • For profit • Top 10 teachers earned 5M dollars as of June 2013.
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• Open University UK • Partnered with the British Museum, British Library • Currently in Open Beta
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• Pros: – Non-profit, part of experienced organisation Open Univ. – Strong partnerships in UK – European
• Cons:
– New, not well established yet (maybe this is a plus?) – Some open questions:
Alternative formats? Embedded Quizes? Support? Cost?
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Experience from other MOOCs
• Edinburgh University – Hosted 6 diverse courses on Coursera in 2012
• University of London
– International Programme 4 MOOCs related to topics taught in the program
– Coursera, 2012 • University of Pennsylvania
– 20+ courses Coursera, 2012-2013
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Participation
• Of the 100s of thousands that registered for these courses, how many logged into the course site during the course?
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Participation
• Of the 100s of thousands that registered for these courses, how many logged into the course site during the course?
50%
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Completion
• Percentage of students that participated that completed the course?
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Completion
• Percentage of students that participated that completed the course?
3-10%
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Why such low participation & completion rates?
• Free/easy registration • Lack of time • Uninteresting/misunderstood classes • Poor course structure • Not a goal for the student • Other?
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• Who are the students in MOOCs?
• (data based on email survey-primarily active students)
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Edinburgh University
• Costs: Estimate 30 days faculty time per 5 week MOOC plus
direct costs for video production and copyright clearance
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Costs
• Timeframe: – Sept 2012, agreement with Coursera signed – Sept-Mar 2013, course designed and announced – Mar-May 2013, videos produced – June 2013 MOOCs begun
• Workload/direct costs
– 200 hours course development/MOOC, 10 hours per week for 6 months (not including time for video recording)
– During MOOC, 10 hours per week (monitoring forums, problems)
– Video production cost ~£10,000 (includes salaries)
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Based on these reports and others
• Videos should be short! (10 min) • Longer videos (20 min) need to be interuptted by short quizzes • Website has to be very clean, straightforward and simple to
use. • We have to consider that our initial student population may not
be what we predicted. • Completion may not be the goal of our students and perhaps
not a measure of success.
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MOOC: Antibiotic Resistance
• Why this topic? – Antibiotic Resistance is a growing concern – New, inventive solutions are being sought and we
need more! – Provides an engaging theme with which to teach
Molecular Biology and Microbiology – Topic overlaps with my own course in
Microbiology
– Target Students: general public, supplemental resource for biology students, resource for professionals in other fields
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Course Introduction There are 6 parts to the course. Part 1 has an introduction to the problem of antibiotic resistance and discussion of the topics covered in the course. It is strongly suggested you start here! The remaining 5 parts have the following structure: • 2 or 3 ’base’ videos with an overview of that week’s topics. • Links to further reading or videos if you want more background
information. Look here if you don’t understand a concept in the base videos.
• Links to further reading or videos if you want to learn more about this weeks topics.
• A quiz which covers material in the base videos. A discussion forum is available to ask questions and discuss each weeks’ topics.
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Video
Video
Quiz
Link
Core Material Further Info Background Info
Link
Link
Link Link
Link
Link
Link
Link
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Britain's most senior medical adviser has warned MPs that the rise in drug-resistant diseases could trigger a national emergency comparable to a catastrophic terrorist attack, pandemic flu or major coastal flooding. Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said the threat from infections that are resistant to frontline antibiotics was so serious that the issue should be added to the government's national risk register of civil emergencies. She described what she called an "apocalyptic scenario" where people going for simple operations in 20 years' time die of routine infections "because we have run out of antibiotics". -The Guardian, January, 2013
1. The Problem of Antibiotic Resistance
Video 1 : introduces the problem and introduces discussion question: What do you need to learn about to understand the problem of antibiotic resistance?
Video 2: topics that will be discussed in this course/learning objectives
Links: general news/scientific summaries of the problem, Discussion
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2. What are Bacteria?
Video 1: Introduction to Bacteria and bacterial cell structure Video 2: Bacterial Growth Quiz Links to Background Information: The Central Dogma (DNA-RNA-Protein) Links to Further Information Bacterial Growth Bacterial Cell Biology Virtual Lab: Gram Stain
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3. What are Antibiotics?
Video: What are antibiotics, where do they come from and how do they work? Quiz Links to Background Information: Discovery of Penicillin Links to Further Information: Virtual Lab: testing antibiotic sensitivity Types of Antibiotics
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4. What is Antibiotic Resistance?
Video 1: Types of antibiotic resistance Video 2: Selection and evolution of antibiotic resistance Quiz Links to Background Information Evolution Mutation DNA Links to Further Information Classification of different antibiotics Altering mutation rate as an approach to avoid resistance
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5. How does Antibiotic Resistance Spread?
Video 1: Plasmids, Conjugation and Transformation Video 2: Bacteriophage and Transduction Quiz Links to Background Information Plasmids Conjugation Links to Further Information Inhibiting Conjugation
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6. Approaches to the Problem
Video 1: Recent approaches to antibiotic resistance Video 2: Practical Advice from WHO/CDC Quiz Links to Further Information: Links to WHO, CDC, etc Recent advances
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TimeFrame (my own invention!)
• Decision on platform May 2014 • Videos made June/July 2014 • Course Content reviewed and ’tweaked’ by reviewers,
copyright experts, August/Sept 2014, • Subtitles and transcripts produced Oct 2014 • Course Announced Oct/Nov 2014, applications open • Course runs Jan-Feb-Mar 2015
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What I’ve learned so far
• Unexpectedly, my biggest expenditure in time is finding non-copyrighted images or creating my own slides. Help with this would be a huge benefit to myself and other MOOC creators.
• Using tools such as a drawing tablet or post video editing with arrows, etc make the video lectures feel much more like ’real life’ where I would point at the images.
• Everyone is very, very interested in the topics of MOOCs and most have a strong opinion!
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Links
• http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/sites/default/files/documents/mooc_report-2013.pdf
• https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/1842/6683/1/Edinburgh%20MOOCs%20Report%202013%20%231.pdf
• http://moocnewsandreviews.com/what-is-a-massive-open-online-course-anyway-attempting-definition/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kDHr6d7C7k
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Thank you for your Attention!