Free online courses and social responsibility toward learners.

A systematic literature and blogature review.

Dr Vivien RolfeUniversity of the West of England, Bristol UK

National Teacher FellowScience Open Educator

CC BY Vivien Rolfe

Presentation for

Open Education Conference(OpenEd 2013)

November 6-8, Utah Park City

Why this question?

• I would argue that campus and distance learning programmes have the following ethical stance:

– Students have to meet entry criteria for enrolment– Curricula place great emphasis on student experience and

outcomes– Strategies address academic quality, accessibility, inclusivity and

diversity– Academics care for student welfare

• What is the academic and ethical stance surrounding newer free online courses? xMoocs, cMoocs?

Aims• The aim was to systematically review the research literature and

“blogature” to identify evidence (and the gaps) relating to open online courses and the student experience. Areas of interest:

– Student experience and success– Social and digital inclusion– Accessibility– Quality and governance

• Did not achieve a second aim to survey academic and student opinion – moved house, jobs and cities over the summer!

CC BY Vivien Rolfe

#Searching “NOT Minnie the Moocher”

SOURCES

• Six research databases – keywords & MeSH• Google Scholar• Google Blogs (first 200 blogs of 2 searches)• Peers, Twitter and Google alerts for six months

KEYWORDS

• cMOOX*, xMOOC*, massive online open courses….• Student experience, social responsibility, ethics,

diversity, accessibility……• NOT molybdenum (MoOCl)• NOT “Minnie the Moocher”

Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

Lit and Blog AnalysisIDENTIFICATION

• Read titles and abstracts, and retrieved full document.• Searched blogs / web documents / PDFs for keywords using the “search option”.

EXCLUSION LEG 1

• Duplicates were excluded. Those with no keyword matches within the article were excluded. No research was excluded on the basis of quality (which would be the norm for a systematic review). (Rolfe and Gray 2011)

EXCLUSION LEG 2

• Articles, reviews, blogs were then excluded on fuller examination of the text (e.g. if a blog about a MOOC, personal experience of a MOOC, keyword matched but out of context with my themes).

ANALYSIS

• Search results were recorded on a spreadsheet. • Separate analyses for 1) peer-reviewer research studies; 2) peer-reviewed journal review articles; 3) reports,

eBooks and blog articles.• Review and blog themes were clustered, and new relevant themes identified.

12

44

15

40

30

ARTICLE SOURCESMedline

Web Of Knowledge

IEEE Explorer

Scopus

Google Scholar

New Literature

32%

31%

18%

6%

4%2%

8%

ARTICLE TYPES Conference abstracts/proceedins

Journal articles

Journal editorial/comment

Journal literature review

White Paper/horizon report

Systematic review

Other

Scholar did notretrieve a singleJOURNAL paper.

Lit and Blog Identification

BLOGS, 75

(2012-2013) ARTICLES,

141(2004-2013)

Results

5%

95%

BLOG SOURCES

Twitter

Google Blog Search

1 1 14

8

12

26

20

BLOG AUTHORS

Students

Dolls

Nuns

Bloggers

Journalists

Technologists

Educators

Others

Lit and Blog Identification

BLOGS, 75(2012

-2013)

ARTICLES,141

(2004-2013)

EXCLUSIONLEG 1

EXCLUSIONLEG 2

75

39

129

38

Puntastic!

All the world's a MOOC, and all the men and women merely teachers and learners

The MOOCs of Hazard

I’m in the mood for MOOCs

Some MOOC points

MOOC or not to MOOC

Wikimedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Erroll_George.jpg

Lit Analysis – Leg 2; 129 Articles down to 38.

• Only 1 “controlled” academic study.• 3 gained ethical approval to use student data/blog narratives for research.• 1 study from Sri Lanka looked at digital and social inclusion.• Learner data not the learner!

Systematic Reviews• Liyanagunawardena et al (2013) – systematic account of MOOC

literature (research + other documents); 45 items and 9 matched for student experience. Not evaluated for quality further.

• Means et al (2010); search of 1132 and 45 included for analysis.

“The most unexpected finding was that an extensive initial search of the published literature from 1996 through 2006 found no experimental or controlled quasi-experimental studies”

“Elements such as video or online quizzes do not appear to influence the amount that students learn in online classes. The research does not support the use of some frequently recommended online learning practices”.

Blog Analysis – Leg 2; 75 Articles down to 39.

“Drop out rates. But what about the drop outs?”

“I would hate to see people get a bad taste of university because there's just too many

students in there to get personal attention.”

“And what does “primarily free” mean? MOOCs are only available to people with excellent broadband internet access and fast computers”

“The question is if students without the literacies required to take a Higher Education

degree are able to succeed”

INCLUSION

OUR ACADEMIC SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

“There will be no private, “safe” spaces for learning.”

“Then there are the sticky matters of plagiarism, identity fraud, peer grading, and a lack of creditable assessment of learning outcomes.”

“Assuming you have the right tech, you’ll also have to be comfortable with being tracked and monitored.”

IP AND PRIVACY

“Who will validate student learning?”

ACADEMIC QUALITY ASSURANCE / PEDAGOGY

“Fairly unaltered in relation to the important stuff like instructional design, instructional

delivery, and authentic assessment.”

Summary – learner experience?

• Concerns for learner experience and our social responsibility was reflected in blog opinions, but was not the subject of good quality research.

• A lack of concern with who drops out and why, and the impact on their future learning.

Summary – pedagogy?• Insights into online learning design from Means et al’s review (2010) are

not reflected in xMOOC design. Students online performed slightly better than face-to-face (although there was no mention of time invested). Learning outcomes were enhanced by:– Collaborative or instructor-directed learning rather than independent.– Giving learners control of their interactions and time for reflection.

• Learning was not enhanced by:– Use of video or online quizzes.– Providing guidance to groups as opposed to individuals.

• Discussions about pedagogy were reflected in blog opinions but not empirical research.

Summary – unethical?

• What are the user rights - for privacy? A safe learning space? Is there any data protection? Who owns the user data, and how will it be used next? Affiliate marketing?

• Where are the ethical standards? Blog and personal learning narratives readily used in research. Where is the informed consent?

Summary – scope of research?

• The current work concurs with past systematic reviews on the lack of good quality educational research in online learning (Dean 2010, Rolfe 2011).

• Research emerging over the last 5 years is interested in learner DATA not the learner.

Recommendations for future research.

ANY!

Let’s not do education by numbers!

CC BY Vivien Rolfe

Thank you!

For further information go to:vivrolfe.com

• Slides on Slideshare• Reference Lists on Google Docs

• Methods blogs – searching literature and “blogature”• Learning by numbers. Pitfalls of pursuing targets.

• Full paper – results of systematic review, research findings (under way).

References

• Liyanagunawardena TR, Adams AAA and Williams SA (2013) MOOCs: A systematic study of the published literature 2008-2012. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Volume 14(3), 202-227. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1455/2531

• Means B, Toyama Y, Murphy R, Bakia M and Jones K (revised 2010) Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning. A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. US Department of Education. http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/tech/evidence-based-practices/finalreport.pdf

• Rolfe VE and Gray D (2011) Are Multimedia Resources Effective in Life Science Education? A Meta-Analysis. Bioscience Education, Volume 18. http://journals.heacademy.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.3108/beej.18.5