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Launch page for Personal Tutoring @ UoP Four boxes across the top of the page showing different sets of people. Then 6 boxes underneath this showing different areas

Guest Blogger: Mary McKeever – New Personal Tutoring Platform

October 16, 2017 / Mary McKeever / 0 Comments

Dr Mary McKeever (SFHEA) is a Principal Lecturer in Higher Education and is the Lead Assessor for the Academic Professional Excellence Programme (APEX) and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is the Co-ordinator of the Graduate Students’ Professional Development Programme (GPROF) and she developed and co-ordinates the online programme for part time lecturers (ALPROF).

New Personal Tutoring Platform Launched in Creative Technologies and Architecture

A group of staff from across the University have collaborated on building a new personal tutoring platform that uses technology to bring together key student information for personal tutors and a personal tutoring google site that informs and signposts personal tutors to academic and pastoral support for their personal tutees.

The platform and website is being piloted in Architecture and Creative Technologies. It has been built in collaboration with personal tutors from the two schools. The consultation with staff has proved invaluable – in each school the tutors discussed the difficulties they have in accessing key information about their tutees, which is held across different systems and can be difficult to access when required. Staff drew up a wishlist of the information about their students and student support services that would be most helpful for them to have, in order of priority. The two wishlists were then combined and the platform was built using an agile methodology of working through the priority list and sending it back to the schools for testing. This proved to be a very successful collaborative effort with IS, DCQE and academics all working together to meet a very tight deadline.

The project is part of a HEFCE-funded project entitled Raising Awareness, Raising Aspiration: A Targeted Personal Tutoring Support Programme for Narrowing Gaps in Student Achievement and Ambition (RARA). We are partners with King’s College London and The University of Sheffield in the project, both of whom have already got platforms. Working as part of the national project, has allowed us to catch up in a very short time but using the latest technology and drawing on the best technical expertise.

Alana Aldred from Technology Enhanced Learning designed the website taking inspiration from the King’s Personal Tutoring Platform.

John Newland designed the front end of the platform database to bring together the key data sources requested by personal tutors in an accessible and attractive interface.

Daniel Tung put in long hours on the technical build, working alongside Andrew Johnys, a contractor employed from the HEFCE grant. Paul Ramsay brought together personal and academic student support service details so that personal tutors would have all the signposting information they need at their fingertips.

The Personal Tutoring Platform and Google site have now been launched in the pilot faculties, giving personal tutors access to photographs, contact details, stage of study, year groups, marks achieved across all years and courses, ECF applications, attendance at key compulsory lectures and workshops, and submission of work. Most important for our diverse student body, personal tutors can now access the contact details of all the student support services (locally and centrally) so that personal tutors can make early referral for the development of key academic and technical skills essential for student academic success and referral to sources of personal support as necessary.

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A large circle within the circle 5 others that all overlap — Six elements of digital capability

Digital Capabilities?

October 9, 2017 / Adrian Sharkey / 2 Comments

Why do digital capabilities matter?

In 2015 the House of Lords published a report on the need to improve the country’s digital capabilities, Make or Break: The UK’s Digital Future. It was an eye opener and didn’t pull any punches. Among the findings, the report stated that 35% of existing jobs would be automated over the next 20 years and that higher education had not responded to the urgent need for re-skilling. The report goes on to outline that digital skills are all encompassing, affecting all areas of the economy including industry, agriculture, health care, financial services as well as public and consumer services.

Added to this is the expectation of students now paying £9,000 a year in tuition fees. Higher education is seen as much more of a transaction and students expect to be given the skills that make them employable. With expectations from government and students, higher education has a large responsibility in providing the relevant skills for a successful digital economy, to both staff and students.

What are digital capabilities?

Higher education agencies like UCISA and Jisc have come up with a definition and a framework for digital capabilities:

‘Digital capabilities are those that fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society.’

Digital capability covers a wide range of areas and is embedded in all teaching and learning. There is a big assumption that students these days are computer ‘savvy,’ and while they may spend a lot of time online and be comfortable with different applications and devices, that doesn’t necessarily translate to being able to evaluate information, analyse data, having a credible online identity etc.

The six elements of digital capability:

ICT Proficiency

Be comfortable using different devices, applications and services and know which ones to apply to particular tasks. An ability to keep up to date with ICT and deal with problems when they occur.

Information, data and media literacies

Being able to evaluate information, analyse it and present it in different settings, use data in applications like spreadsheets and databases to query it and run reports. An understanding of laws around data, like copyright and data protection. An ability to interpret and a critical approach to media messages.

Digital creation, problem solving and innovation

Present work and ideas using blogs, web pages audio and visual tools etc. Understand different digital research tools, analyse and present the results. Use digital tools in different settings to present ideas.

Digital communication, collaboration and participation

Effectively use forums, social media and other digital communication tools. Collaborate on projects and work with people from different organisations and backgrounds using productivity tools like G-suite. Use digital tools, social networking etc. to participate in online learning, professionally and personally online.

Digital learning and development

Be able to learn online, monitor progress and showcase achievements. To teach and design online learning opportunities.

Digital identity and wellbeing

Be able to project a positive digital identity across different profiles and understand the reputational risks and benefits of participating online. Use digital tools to pursue personal goals, manage work life balance online.

What next?

Digital capability needs to be seen as an institute wide responsibility, across all departments.
One of the first steps is to assess your own digital capability, this can be done using the Jisc Digital Discovery Tool, while this is aimed at staff, some institutions have used it with students also. There should be a student discovery tool in early 2018.
All opportunities should be taken to embed digital capability into the curriculum, staff and students should be encouraged to co-create digital resources.
Example digital capability profiles for staff (including support staff) and students. Jisc have made a start on this.
Make digital capability part of everyone’s Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and Performance Development Review (PDR).
Look at certification and accreditation.
Encourage digital good practice, offer rewards for innovative digital teaching and for student achievement.
Provide the digital infrastructure and university wide tools to allow students and staff to develop digital capability.

Further resources

Technology Enhanced Learning Team in DCQE

The IT Training Team in IS

Jisc – Building digital capability

The 2017 UCISA Digital Capabilities Survey Report

Jisc – Student digital experience tracker 2017

Dame Martha Lane Fox – Richard Dimbleby Lecture

@adrianjsharkey

image credits: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/digital-capability-model-wide.jpg

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5 people around a table with laptop and documents in front of them

Degree Apprenticeships

October 2, 2017 / Stephen Webb / 0 Comments

A couple of years ago the government made it clear that they wanted universities to offer a new type of programme: degree apprenticeships. These programmes would offer students the opportunity to achieve a full bachelors or masters degree as part of their apprenticeship. Apprentices would be employed throughout the programme, but spend part of their time at university – on a day-to-day basis or in blocks, depending on the programme and the requirements of the employer.

There are a number of attractive aspects of degree apprenticeships:

Apprentices will gain a degree without needing to pay student fees.
Apprentices are employed, so they get paid a wage throughout the course. (So student debt, which we hear so much about, is much less likely to be a problem for those who take a degree apprenticeship.)
Apprentices will gain a head start in their chosen profession.
Apprentices will acquire the graduate/postgraduate level skills they need for the world of work.
Employers can attract – and retain – new talent.
Training costs are co-funded by the government and the employer.

In May 2017, the “apprenticeship levy” was introduced to fund apprenticeships. The levy is an 0.5% tax on the wage bill of any employer with a salary cost in excess of £3 million per year. The levy is expected to generate about £3 billion per year – money that can only be spent on approved apprenticeships.

Given the clear attractiveness of these programmes to prospective students it seems certain that universities, in order to stay competitive, will need to offer an increasing range of degree apprenticeships. The University of Portsmouth has responded quickly to this changing environment by appointing several new members of staff to promote and support the development of degree and masters degree apprenticeships.

One challenge facing our new colleagues is the need to develop learning that fits around work commitments – flexible learning modes such as day or block release, and distance or blended learning. Indeed, it seems increasingly likely that online learning (to enable distance or blended learning) is going to play a key role in the development of degree apprenticeships. It won’t be appropriate for all such programmes – the military, for example, would probably prefer paper workbooks to Moodle-based courses! – but for the majority of employers the offer of an online option will be a prerequisite.

So the appointment of three new online course developers to support degree apprenticeships is highly welcome! These OCDs – Andy Taggart, Daren Cooper and Becky Holman are located with the TEL team in Mercantile House. But they’ll be working with colleagues in the faculties to develop exciting new degree apprenticeship programmes. Initial indications are that they are going to be extremely busy!

A little bit about the new OCDS

Andy Taggart

“Hi everyone, my name’s Andy Taggart and am really excited about joining the TEL team as an online course developer, working on the Degree Apprenticeships. Originally from Liverpool, I live in Southampton and have done so pretty much since graduating from university there in 1983. Though I did work for a year in Brussels where I met my wife (we got together after I helped rescue her from a fire in the school where we were both working).

Before joining the University I worked for many years in the sixth-form sector, first as a teacher of History before moving into eLearning, specifically Moodle course development. In relation to online learning, I am particularly interested in exploring how technology can support less able students especially those groups of students who tend to underperform. I have worked with many staff over the years, using the interactive features of Moodle, to help improve student attainment and to help students in general learn in an interesting and innovative way. After many years of working with teachers in helping them prepare their students for university – it’s going to be interesting to work on this side of the fence.

As part of my OCD work I am hoping to also explore the game elements in Moodle as a way of making online learning fun, engaging but academically rigorous at the same time.

Aside from the actual use and creation of online courses I am also interested in the underlying pedagogy of online learning – how it impacts on learners, how it compares to other methods of learning and how it can support approaches to teaching and learning such as flipped and blended learning. I am also keen to work with academic staff to create videos that can then be embedded into Moodle courses, past experience shows that students do find short instructional videos to be particularly useful.

Outside of work I’m married, have two daughters, two dogs and my interests range from playing the ukulele, reading (mainly history, politics and Scandinavian crime) to real ale.

I am passionate about the use of technology in education and looking forward to contributing to the development of online teaching and learning for degree apprenticeship academics and students.”

Daren Cooper

“Hello all, my name is Daren Cooper and I am looking forward to the challenges ahead working as an Online Course Developer (OCD) for the new apprenticeship degrees. I am hoping to help create some interesting materials and use some of the skills I have acquired from my time as an OCD in SSHLS to create attractive interactive content. Prior to working at the University of Portsmouth I was also a student here and got my degree in Video Production, which I have put to good use since working at the University.

In the past I have made educational videos and promotional videos for the Faculty of Humanities and have since gone on to produce websites for research projects in various subjects. I’ve worked within education for about 10 years including primary and secondary schools, college and now university.

I have had a varied career over the years but working in developing online courses has been the job I’ve stuck to the longest (it’s better than bingo calling, the second longest job!). When I am not at work my special powers include carpentry, DIY, video editing and tending the allotment.”

Becky Holman

“Hi all! My name is Becky Holman and I will be joining the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team from October as one of the Online Course Developers (OCDs) focused on the University of Portsmouth’s new Degree Apprenticeships.

I’ve worked at the University of Portsmouth for over 10 years now, starting off as an receptionist and working upwards to the role of Administrator. Although I’ve enjoyed all of the roles I have undertaken over the years I have always had a real interest in digital technology and was always keen to move my career forward into a direction where I could pursue that interest. At the beginning of this year an opportunity arose for me to be seconded into the TEL team as an Online Course Developer. I had great feedback from my time in the role and I enjoyed my secondment so much that I began applying for any OCD role that became available… and now here I am!

I am really excited to be joining the TEL team and am looking forward to helping give students the best online learning experience possible by creating interesting content which is also accessible. I am especially looking forward to experimenting with H5P to achieve this.

When I’m not at work I love to read, work on my garden, play video games and (occasionally) run. I’m married and have one dog, who absolutely rules the roost! When I have time I also like to take part in MOOCs but I would really like to be able to undertake a degree apprenticeship myself in the future.”

We would like to welcome Andy, Daren and Becky to the TEL team and look forward to hearing more from them about degree apprenticeships in the future!

Image credits: https://marketing.port.ac.uk/media/

Skills4Study@Portsmouth web page image. Six boxes each with an image for different areas

Skills4StudyCampus – online study skills support

September 28, 2017 / Alana Aldred / 0 Comments

Many students who arrive at the University often fall short of the necessary study skills required for them to achieve their academic goals. With the support of the Academic Skills Unit (ASK) students are able to enhance their skills by attending workshops and one-to-one sessions, as well as receive paper handouts. However, the University have also invested in a licence for the Palgrave MacMillan resource Skills4StudyCampus which is available to our students online.

Skills4StudyCampus is an interactive online tool that allows students to prepare for studying at university level and to help them develop their study skills. There are 6 modules: Getting ready for academic study; Reading and note-taking; Critical thinking skills; Writing skills; Exam skills; and Time management.

Skills4StudyCampus Moodle site ‘Skills4Study@Portsmouth’

Students can access this resource by logging into Moodle and selecting the site Skills4Study@Portsmouth from the ‘Useful Sites’ drop-down menu.

Students are then free to actively participate in activities as and when they need to. The modules include: diagnostic tests to help students recognise areas in which they need to improve their skills; self assessment tasks to help them gain a deeper understanding of their knowledge and skills; interactive activities to help reinforce the skills and knowledge they have learnt; and module assessments to test understanding of what has been learnt. Students can also use the My Journal feature which allows them to make notes and reflect on their learning.

The modules have been designed to suit different types of learners and has been created to support students with accessibility issues.

Embed Skills4StudyCampus into your Moodle course units
Skills4StudyCampus modules / sections can now be easily embedded directly into a Moodle course unit using the External tool activity.

To find out more on how to embed sections of this resource into your Moodle course unit, log into Moodle and select ‘Staff Help Site’ from the ‘Help Sites’ drop-down menu. You will then find a section that will provide you with guidance along with the generated embedding links.

Black banner with splashes of colour with title Training Site, below normal Moodle page

The New Features of Moodle 3.3

September 25, 2017 / Tom Langston / 0 Comments

Moodle has successfully been upgraded to version 3.3, improving functionality and stability for all users.

New features:

Integration of H5P – a content-authoring tool that allows you to quickly create interactive resources for your Moodle units (you can use H5P to upload or create: audio recordings; charts; drag-and-drop words or images; flashcards; interactive videos; quizzes; and timelines).
Stealth activities – activities and resources that are accessed only through other items or links, and are not visible from the course page (previously Orphaned activities). Stealth activities and resources can now be hidden in a standard topic space but made available (under Edit, Make available) to a student / participant. This will hide resources / activities from the course page completely, but still be accessible to students through a link or item within the Moodle unit.
Drag and drop media – when in editing mode, for quickness, you can now drag and drop media files (images, audio recordings) directly into topic spaces in your Moodle site and select whether to make them either a downloadable file or viewable resource without having to add a label, book or page file to contain them.
Atto editor – Atto has become the default editor. Staff and students can change their preference to Tiny MCE via Editor Preferences in their profile. However, Atto does provides auto-saving functionality (useful for exams) and formats content in a much more accessible way. Tiny MCE does offer a few different elements of functionality that some staff may find useful, for example – whilst using Tiny MCE in the FireFox browser image resizing can be done by dragging the image corners, rather than having to specifying the require image dimensions.

Moodle assignment:

The Moodle assignment tool has been dramatically improved to include inline commenting features similar in nature to Turnitin’s Feedback Studio. PDF conversion of student-submitted Word documents is handled automatically by Google Drive, making the new Moodle assignment much more robust than last year’s version.
When setting up a Moodle assignment it is now also possible to restrict which file formats students must submit their work in. You can do this by adding in the extension name (e.g. .docx) to ‘Accepted file type’ field. However, please note that the system will then not allow uploads of any other file formats, including versions of the same software such as Word (.doc and .docx). To set multiple file formats just use a comma to separate them in the field box. If you wish to allow students to upload any file type then simply leave the ‘Accepted file type’ field blank.
By turning on the Activity Completion option (the default is off) you can now bulk edit Activity Completion settings. An example would be that if you want all your quizzes to have a new passing grade, you are now able to set this for all activities and not manually change each instance.

Moodle theme:

New Moodle Theme

The Moodle theme has been improved over the summer, with a full re-design planned for summer 2018/19. Staff can now upload a unit cover image (under Course Administration, Course Summary Files) to quickly and easily illustrate what a unit is about. The upload also triggers the inclusion of a new content filtering and navigation system.

Assessed Videos

September 18, 2017 / Jerry Collingwood / 0 Comments

Assessed Videos is a solution developed by the TEL Team to simplify the administration processes of recording a student (or group of students) for assessment. Recordings are shared privately between the assessor and the student just as a written assignment would be. The process is so simple it has been used in class whilst students have given short presentations one after the other with the recording available to the student for review before the end of the session.

Utilising our TechSmith Relay Server (formerly Camtasia Relay) and the TechSmith Fuse mobile app (available on Android, iOS and Windows devices), a video is taken by the mobile device and uploaded to the central server where metadata such as the student’s ID number and details about the recording are stored in a database and used to assign viewing rights. As a lecturer on a really basic level, all you need to do to use this service is start a recording, stop a recording, select the appropriate profile from a dropdown list when uploading the recording and enter the student’s ID number in the description field. After five minutes (longer for high definition video, longer recordings and at peak times) the recording is available for both you and your student to view at http://relay.port.ac.uk/assessed/ where you can both log in using your standard UoP details. All of your videos will be available from one simple navigation page, so no need to remember lots of URLs or save numerous emails.

Whilst working closely with early adopters of this technology/solution, it has become clear that sometimes we can save you even more time by batch processing some of the metadata for you. For example between X and Y dates you might like all of your recordings to have similar titles .e.g ‘U12345 Assessment 1 – student number’. This can be arranged for you so that all you need to do is enter the student number in the description field as described above, rather than completing the title field each time in addition. We can also ensure that all of your recordings are shared with a colleague and vice versa – particularly useful if you team teach. Have an external examiner? No problem, we can create an account for them and share either all or just a selection of your recordings with them.

For each recording, the owner (and any markers) have space to enter a numerical grade out of 100 and also complete a comments box, but that is no reason to limit yourself with the type of feedback you could be providing. Why not film yourself talking to the camera? Simply enter the ID number for the student you are providing feedback to in the description field. Or if you are a little camera shy you could use Relay on your computer to record your screen, perhaps allowing you to add an audio comment alongside a marking grid that you might be completing for the student? If you make a number of recordings throughout the year, you can even set a written reflection exercise with your students who can reference each recording with the direct URL – their recording is still private between you and them as nobody else can view that URL without permissions.

There is both a ‘quickstart’ and a more detailed user-guide available to download from http://relay.port.ac.uk/assessed/ but if you have any questions or would like a demonstration of the system please contact the TEL team at elearn@port.ac.uk for assistance.

Students talking at he top of the stairs, plus other students walking up them

Preparing students for university

September 13, 2017 / Marie Kendall-Waters / 0 Comments

The transition from further education to higher education can be a daunting experience for students. Being away from home for the first time, studying independently in an online environment, returning to education after raising a family or meeting new people from different backgrounds and cultures – these are all situations where students can feel out of their comfort zones. All can be equally terrifying and exciting!

Within DCQE we have always tried to bridge the gap between FE and HE, tried to support students from various backgrounds joining university for the first time, and tried to help students to prepare for life at university.

PrepUP

In June 2008 the eLearning Centre (now the TEL team), designed and developed a website specifically aimed at new students that were yet to join the University of Portsmouth, but had applied and had a place on a course. The site contained information about the students’ courses they had registered on, information such as ‘a typical week’, ‘recommended reading’ – guidance about reading lists and short videos from previous students talking about the course and tutor videos.

Over the years the site grew, from being aimed just at campus-taught courses to include distance learning courses; later, specific sections for postgraduate and international students were featured. PrepUP grew to include information about life at university, finance, accommodation and support facilities and it also contained interactive resources about lectures, seminars and a virtual tour around the university library. Competitions too became part of the PrepUP experience: students could win prizes such as hoodies donated by departments around the university and goodie bags tailored with course books and vouchers by the local bookshop, tickets up the Spinnaker Tower and tickets to visit Portsmouth Historical Dockyard.

Some of the designs of PrepUP over the years

Why was this important?

PrepUP helped new students receive information about their course and the University in a fun and engaging way, before they arrived. At the time, this facility wasn’t being provided by anyone else within the University. With the inclusion of Facebook groups, which provided a way for new students to get to know their peers before starting, PrepUP became an essential resource for all new students. From feedback the students told us that it helped them feel connected; it reassured them that university wasn’t so scary and that they’ll know people on their first day. Some of them even thanked us, as they had found a ‘best friend’ through PrepUP!

PrepUP in 2017

From 2008-2016 PrepUP remained popular for new students. However, during that time several other departments within the University started providing their own social media groups and pages for new students, and they began publishing information on the University website. This organic growth meant that students were now receiving mixed communications, duplicated information, and numerous email notifications about which social media groups to ‘like’ or ‘join’! As part of a wider, University-wide rethink on the whole induction process, DCQE looked again at PrepUP and it’s purpose for new students in 2017. This year the delivery of course-related information has been pushed back to faculty and department level: Course Leaders and their teams, rather than DCQE, are the best people to provide information about their course and what students can do to prepare before joining. We have provided support to CLs by creating “welcome” videos and helping them to develop Google Sites as a way of providing information to students.

Example welcome video – Forensic Psychology UoP

The delivery of more general University-related material has been facilitated by a landing page for new students, created by the UoP Marketing team, called ‘Information for new students’. This page provides support for international and EU students; help with applications; assistance with finding somewhere to live; guidance on money and finance; information about the Students’ Union … and a link to a new site that DCQE has put together called Learning at Portsmouth.

Learning at Portsmouth

The Learning at Portsmouth site brings the focus back onto the services and support that DCQE offers as a whole, which is something we couldn’t do before with PrepUP. The site includes information about learning and studying at university, understanding digital literacy and learning how to work with learning technologies and looking at how our personal beliefs and mindsets impact on our learning. Our aim for Learning at Portsmouth is for the site to be a resource that all students can dip in and out of throughout their time at university, not just at the beginning!

What can I be doing to help new students experience?

We hope that the Learning at Portsmouth site will continue to develop, and that students will provide us with feedback about what is useful for them in preparing for and continuing with their university journey. If you are a Course Leader, and are thinking of the best ways to communicate with new students, perhaps this year or next, then we would recommend providing students with at least a welcome video to your course, so that 1) they can put a face to a name and know who you are from the offset, and 2) find out the ways to best prepare for your course by the expert – you!

If you have any questions regarding PrepUP/Learning at Portsmouth, or if you are a Course Leader who would like some support with resources for your new students, then please get in touch with me (marie.kendall-waters@port.ac.uk) or the TEL team (elearn@port.ac.uk) – we will be happy to help you!

Image credits: https://marketing.port.ac.uk/media/

The image taken from Moodle login page. Four boxes for different areas

The future of FutureLearn

September 4, 2017 / Stephen Webb / 1 Comment

FutureLearn – the first UK-led MOOC platform – is now in its fifth year of operation. It was launched in December 2012 by 12 UK universities, led by the Open University, and quickly established itself as a popular venue for people interested in learning online. From personal experience I’d argue that the MOOC offerings on FutureLearn tend to suffer from the same issues as those on similar digital education platforms – teaching can be of variable quality and attrition rates are high – but many people have chosen to study one or more of its courses: at the time of writing 5,758,685 learners (including most members of the TEL team here at Portsmouth) have signed up to FutureLearn. The FutureLearn consortium itself has grown too: it now features 109 partners. The majority of partners are UK universities, but non-UK universities are also on board; furthermore, FutureLearn is unique in this sector by allowing non-university partners such as the British Museum and the European Space Agency to deliver courses on the platform.

So FutureLearn’s growth has been impressive. But can it continue to grow in the way it has over the past four years? Perhaps not.

When it first launched, one of the key selling points of FutureLearn was its promise of free learning: anyone could register on a course and start learning with like-minded people. Students had to pay if they wanted certificates/statements of participation, but access to tests was free as was unlimited access to course content (even after the end of a course). This ‘free’ provision of content is a wonderful notion, but from the start there was a question mark surrounding the financial sustainability of this model.

The creation, delivery and administration of high-quality online learning courses is expensive. Extremely expensive. It came as no surprise recently, then, to learn that FutureLearn are introducing elements of a “freemium” model (see their blog post for more details). For courses starting on or after 6 March 2017 students will still get access to free online courses, but now they’ll have to “upgrade” if they want to get features that were previously free of charge. In particular, if students want access to tests or to access content more than 14 days after the end of the course then they’ll have to stump up between £24 to £69 (depending on the course).

FutureLearn is not the only successful MOOC platform in existence – and it’s not the only one that has changed its terms and conditions. Like FutureLearn, Coursera – a US-led educational technology company offering MOOCs – was founded in 2012; and like FutureLearn it started out with more free features on offer than at any time since. Registering and attending courses on Coursera is free, but an upgraded subscription offers more privileges and features. The income from learners who pay for the extra features is small, because the majority of users are content to use the free service and have slightly restricted access. While this access might be enough to acquire knowledge, it is not sufficient to acquire a Coursera ‘certificate’. And it seems that the students who pay for the extra features are more likely to complete the course on which they enrolled (they may be more motivated because they do not want to waste the money they spent; they may be motivated by the certificate they will get upon successful completion of their course; or they may feel better supported by the extra features they enjoy). Perhaps that is one of the reasons – among other more utilitarian ones such as marketing – that Coursera has managed to attract both academic and private sponsors, who give funding to prospective students following a quick application.

The FutureLearn business model, then, now seems to be the following. A small number of learners purchase the benefits provided by the upgrade; this provides enough income to permit free (but slightly restricted) access for all other learners. In these challenging times for HE, it will be interesting to see whether FutureLearn’s new business model will provide a financially sustainable future for the platform.

Image credits: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47572798@N00/8397808475/sizes/z/

MOOC Experience

August 28, 2017 / Mandy Harcup / 0 Comments

Encouraged to enrol on a MOOC, and then write about my experience, I decided I had better first find out some information on what MOOC stands for and what a MOOC is. For those of you unfamiliar with this turn of phase, MOOC stands for a ‘massive open online course’ – originally designed to make distance learning available to the masses, where courses were intended to be free of charge.

So after doing an initial internet search on MOOCs and finding searches advertising ‘Free Online Courses’ – great I thought, free courses, I want to know more. So I searched Wikipedia where I read about background information and discovered how MOOCs have increased with popularity since 2012. MOOCs main appeal was that its online courses could have unlimited participations with open access via the web.

Although each MOOC has its own unique structure and style, I discovered that students on a MOOC were to learn from each other, by sharing knowledge through discussion and experiences.

Interestingly, there are two types of MOOCs: ‘xMOOC – Focuses on scalability’ and ‘cMOOC – Focuses on community and connections’ (illustrated in the image).

George Siemens (2013), co-creator of the first cMOOC, reported that they were‘based on the idea that learning happens within a network, where learners use digital platforms such as blogs, wikis, social media platforms to make connections with content, learning communities and other learners to create and construct knowledge.’ Whilst xMOOC are based on a more traditional classroom structure with a lecturer in control of the learning process, along with quizzes and assignments to monitor student learning.

So after researching MOOCs I decided to register with FutureLearn – a provider of free online courses. I found creating an account and choosing a course was nice and easy. I decided I would start off with a short course and chose one that said it was two hours a week for two weeks – short and sweet, I thought.

Disappointingly, a few days into my free online course, I received an email from FutureLearn stating that I would need to upgrade, at a cost, to experience the full range of benefits the course offers. The upgrade would costs between £24 and £69 – the actual price would not appear until I had almost completed the course.

During the first week of the course I felt like I spent longer than the recommended 2hrs per week working through course content and exercises – perhaps this was just because this method of study was a new experience to me. I enjoyed participating in online discussions, however, I would of liked to see more discussion from other participants, this could of been an idea time for the ‘lecturer’ to encourage train of thought and direct should the discussion stray off course.

Due to illness I was unable to participate in the second consecutive week of my course. Although I hadn’t upgraded I knew I still had access to course materials for another 14 days after the course had finished – if, however, I had upgraded I would have had unlimited access to course content for as long as the course exists in FutureLearn.

I successfully worked my way through the second week content until I reached the assessment section which was titled ‘Assess your Understanding – Test’. If I wanted to take this test and receive a Certificate of Achievement I would have to pay £39, this I didn’t want to do. The last step of my course introduced the next course in the series, asked me to complete a questionnaire and showed a promotional video on the University of Leeds.

Did I enjoy the course, did I learn anything from it and would I do another?

The course covered managing identity online, the objective was to consider our online presence and how what people say online can have major implications on people’s real lives. We looked at defining and applying a personal code of practice for online communication, history of glossaries and enhancing our online identities using social media tools.

Would I do another course? Yes, I’d probably do another one in this series. I did enjoy the course and have put some of the practical skills into use, I’ve tried to tidy up what can be found if you searched my name and in doing so found it’s not so easy to remove everything. On social media I’ve changed quite a few settings so I don’t receive so much unwanted advertisement and I’ve put security steps into place so that other people cannot see information on my Facebook page, should they type my name in the search box. One of the setting I’ve put in place is, if other people want to upload photos onto my page instead of happening automatically, I now receive notification and have to give permission, however, this doesn’t stop the photos appearing on their page.

On a more critical note, I did feel that, perhaps due to the shortness of the course, there was a real lack of discussion from other participants and a lack of presence from the online course leader to encourage direction and dialogue. I never did know if my contribution to the course was correct or not. My main disappointment was, if I wanted to complete the course and receive a certificate then I would have to pay for it… so the course wasn’t entirely free!

References

MOOC poster (March, 2013). What is the media & cultural studies of the MOOC?Retrieved from:
http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MOOCbetterwordbubble.png (Assessed: 11th April 2017)

Massive open online course (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved March 30, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course

Mathieu Plourde (2013). MOOC poster (by licensed CC-BY on Flickr). Retrieved from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/8620174342/ (Accessed: 29th March 2017)

Touro College Online Education for Higher Ed (August 2013). What is the Difference Between xMOOCs and cMOOCs? Retrieved from: http://blogs.onlineeducation.touro.edu/distinguishing-between-cmoocs-and-xmoocs/ (Accessed: 30 March, 2017)

Siemens, G. (2012). MOOCs are really a platform. Retrieved from: http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2012/07/25/moocs-are-really-a-platform/

Please Note: the www.elearnspace.org link is being update and is inactive at the moment.

Tel Tales

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Guest Blogger: Mary McKeever – New Personal Tutoring Platform

New Personal Tutoring Platform Launched in Creative Technologies and Architecture