Tuesday 2 June 2015

12 Dimensions of MOOCs

GrĂ¡inne Conole wrote about an analytical approach to Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) design in 2014 called A 12-Dimensional Classification Schema for MOOCs.

The dimensions are as follows:

Context
Open How open the MOOC is
Massive The scale of the MOOC/Number of participants
Diversity The diversity of the participants
Learning
Use of multimedia The amount and variety of multimedia
Degree of communication The forms of communication
Degree of collaboration The forms of collaboration
Amount of reflection The extent to which reflection is encouraged
Learning pathway The nature of the learning pathway (from learner centred to highly structured)
Quality Assurance The form of quality assurance
Certification Whether any form of accreditation is possible
Formal learning Link into formal educational offerings
Autonomy The degree of learner autonomy


In her report she analyses a number of MOOCs over recent years using low / medium / high for each of the dimensions. "I would argue that at a glance this classification framework gives a far better indication of the nature of each MOOC than the simple classification as xMOOCs and cMOOCs."

I think it is also a useful classification for exploring the purpose of design features of any particular online course especially where platform constraints are being compared.

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