Presentation to ELESIG Symposium 11 March 2013

1. OOCs
for the rest of us
George Roberts
OCSLD, Oxford Brookes University
ELESIG, March 2013

2. Background

4. Discourses around higher education are:
“… a field of competition for the
legitimate exercise of symbolic
violence,
… an arena of conflict between rival
principles of legitimacy, and
competition for political, economic
and cultural power
(Bourdieu 1993, 121)

5. If you cannot answer
QUESTION: If SOPA/PIPA had
been passed into U.S. law in
that question, you are
2002, would Wikipedia exist
not literate nor are you
today? If either law had passed in
in control of your life—
2012, would Wikipedia exist in
2022? Why or why not? Discuss.
even if you think you are.

7. Literacy - including digital - is
the practice of enunciation in a
community:
“speaking” in the broadest
sense, projecting an identity
with, through and to others
who concur

8. Question 1
• Might MOOCs help address the digital literacy
deficit?
• How?

10. • Native – Immigrant
(Prensky 2001)
• Visitor – Resident
(White & Le Cornu 2011)
• Voyeur – Flaneur
(boyd 2011)
• Liminal participant - Skilled orienteer
(Waite et al 2013)

12. Christ Handing the Keys to St. Peter, Perugino, 1481

13. Open online academic practice offers a
radical challenge to the “polyarchic”
limits to the discussion of digital
literacy within institutions, which are
in conflict with themselves.
(Hall 2012)

14. Liminal participants & skilled orienteers: A case study of
learner participation in a MOOC for new lecturers
(Waite et al 2013)
MOOC experiences

15. Over 200 signed up
• 60 participated throughout the 6
weeks
• We reached our constituency
• 14 undertook the assessment and
Evaluation
received a certificate
• Participants were from 24 different
countries including
Australia, Canada, India, South
Africa, as well as many European
countries &US
Research continuing
• How people learned
• Differential participation
• Design principles

16. MOOCs as threshold concept
• Opening a portal to understanding previously
unknown knowledge
• Preceded by troublesome knowledge
• Liminality: “A suspended state of partial
understanding or stuck place”
(Meyer & Land 2003, Perkins 2006)

17. Three main themes
1. Navigation
2. Transformative reflective practice
3. Making sense of community

18. Navigation
New participants felt overwhelmed by
technology, multiple channels &
perceived need to multi-task.
Experienced MOOCers were judicious
about planning their route and
orienting their participation.

19. Transformative reflective practice
Ultimately learners experienced a
transformative shift …
but it required reflection on
practice, community support and
self-organization

20. Making sense of community
New learners needed time to
determine their audience and core
community…
and to realize reciprocal
relationships.

21. Question 2
• At your table, what has the MOOC
experience been like?
• Liminal participation?
• Skilled orienteering?

22. Forget the massive
OOCs for the rest of us?

23. MOOCs as third space
• Rapidly hybridising novel expressions of
higher education (Roberts, et al 2013)
– cMOOCs, xMOOCs, pMOOCs, etcMOOCs
– Intermediate forms, syntheses, compromises or
novel solutions, arise
• Proxy for the historical conversation about
continuing, professional, open, online,
distance and blended learning (Stewart 2012)

25. • A focus on the course and the platform
ignores the experience of the MOOC learner
• MOOCs offer an unlimited number of
possibilities for hybridization
because, whatever else, they offer
participants the opportunity to fashion their
own learning according to their needs.

26. A bubble?
• Bonk (2013) identifies 22
types of MOOC with 20
Leadership Principles and
12 business models.
• The numbers are
changing and boundaries
are fuzzy.
• There is stratification
going on at the
innovative end of
traditional educational
institutions.

27. Cowboy
economics?
• Monetize
– Accreditation
– Tuition
– Publications
– Recruitment
– ???
• Or… sell picks and
shovels to the
Klondikers
– MOOCs as platforms
Andy Wharhol, 1986

28. Forget the massive

29. Reasons for developing OOCs
• Improving the global learner experience
• Fulfilling the university’s social/global/community
educative mission
• Enhancing reputation and increasing visibility
• Showcase own expertise
• Increasing reach
– Better serve (retain) existing clients
– Attract new clients
– Earn more revenue

30. OOC Pedagoies
Open academic practice
• Expert participation
• Distributed collaboration
• Academic multimedia
• Flipped teaching (the new black)

31. Question 3
• What would your reasons for be for
developing open online courses?

32. Thank you
Dr George Roberts
OCSLD, Oxford Brookes University
March 2013
groberts@brookes.ac.uk

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