Katy Jordan, University of Lancaster (UK) and Fereshte Goshtasbpour, The Open University (UK) In a New York Times article, Pappano (2012) declared 2012 as ‘the year of the MOOC’. It was a year which saw a surge in interest in this new, open form of online higher education. While the initial hype around Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) subsided and their form has changed significantly from the first large-scale courses, more learners than ever are registered with the platforms, which have attracted substantial levels of investment. In this presentation, we report the findings from a paper that brought together articles published about MOOCs in the Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JIME) over the past ten years. First, the presentation provides an overview of major events and trends in relation to MOOCs over the past ten years. Then it takes a closer look at the 25 papers published in JIME arranged in relation to four main themes, including: situating MOOCs; learning design and roles; MOOCs and languages; and accessibility and inclusion. Jordan, K. and Goshtasbpour, F., 2022. JIME Virtual Special Collection – 2012 to 2022: The Decade of the MOOC. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2022(1), p.1.DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.757

1. 2012 to 2022:
The Decade of the MOOC
FutureLearn Academic Network
Katy Jordan (University of Lancaster)
Fereshte Goshtasbpour (The Open University)
October 2023, University of Leeds

2. 2
What we will cover today
• My FLAN journey
• 2012-2022: the decade of MOOCs (Overview and major trends)
• MOOC publications in the Journal of Interactive Medica in Education (JIME)
• Q & A
M
O
O C

3. 3
My FLAN journey
• 2016 First presentation as a PhD student
• 2017-19 Presented in FLAN annual conferences
• 2018-20 FutureLearn/FLAN fellow for two years
• 2018-22 Chaired FLAN sessions
• 2019-present FLAN steering committee member
• 2023 will be co-editor for a FLAN special collection

4. 4
Background
2022 marked ten years since ‘the year of the MOOC (2012)’
Trends since the year of MOOC:
Changes in the levels of interest in MOOCs in education and mainstream media (level
defined as the number of ‘top tier news articles’ which mentioned MOOCs)
• 2013- levels of interest in MOOCs in
news articles reached its peak in the
first quarter of 2013.
• 2014 &15 -Over these two years,
interest levels fell at a steady rate
reaching a point in 2015 where
‘disruption fatigue’ had been
announced (HolonIQ 2020). This also
coincided with the lowest proportion
of positive sentiment in articles.

5. 5
Background
Levels of interest in MOOCs in education and mainstream media (level defined as the
number of ‘top tier news articles’ which mentioned MOOCs)
• 2015- After this point, interest was
sustained at a more consistent and
lower level despite the sharp
decrease in the first two quarters of
2017.

6. 6
Background
Changes in level of positive and negative sentiment in articles on the topic of MOOCs
• Generally positive
• In 2015 when the level of interest had
a sharp drop (‘disruption fatigue’),
the lowest proportion of positive
sentiment in articles was also
observed.
• Despite the decrease in levels of
media interest in MOOCs over time,
the sentiment associated with
MOOCs steadily improved after 2015.
• By the end of 2019 there had been a
higher level of positive sentiment
than during the early years of MOOC
hype (2012/2013).
Negative: in orange Positive: in blue

7. 7
Background
Development of major MOOC platforms
• Four major platforms were developed
during this period and the focus of news
articles moved to the number of users of
these platforms:
• Coursera
• edX
• FutureLearn
• Udacity
• These four platforms have consistently
appeared in Class Central annual list.

8. 8
Background
Growth in number of registered users for four of the largest platforms between 2014-21 (data
sources: EdSurge, 2015; Shah, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021a).
The boost in growth rates
is associated with the
onset of the Covid-19
pandemic in 2020.
The 2021 figures put the
combined users based
across the four platforms
at a total of 170 million
users.

9. 9
Background
Timeline of major trends within the field of MOOCs across the past decade.
Jordan, K and Goshtasbpour, F. (2022). JIME Virtual Special Collection – 2012 to 2022: The Decade of the MOOC.
Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2022(1): 1, pp. 1–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.757

10. 10
Background
Pedagogical and business models underpinning MOOCs
• Connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs)
• xMOOCs
In 2012, courses considered to be ‘xMOOCs’ were still generally free for participants to study
and even earn a certificate.
In 2022, this has long been discontinued, with access often now being restricted to a
particular time period without payment of a fee, and no free certification (now micro-
credential as individual courses to Master courses)
Jordan, K and Goshtasbpour, F. (2022). JIME Virtual Special Collection – 2012 to 2022: The Decade of the
MOOC. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2022(1): 1, pp. 1–14. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.757

11. 11
Background
• MOOCs did not live up to the initial hype or fundamentally ‘disrupt’ higher
education. But they have certainly added some diversity to it.
• Compromises have been made in relation to the truly ‘open’ and equitable
access of educational provision through MOOCs. But for millions of learners,
MOOCs do fill an educational niche. A much wider range of higher
education institutions now offer some kind of distance education through
MOOCs than did previously.

12. 12
MOOC research in the Journal of Interactive Media in
Education (JIME)
JIME
• Established in September 1996
• Open access policy
• Scope: international research on the theories, practices and experiences in the field of
educational technology
• Setting: higher or post-compulsory education
To mark the milestone of ten years passing since the ‘year of the MOOC’, JIME produced a
virtual special collection to reflect upon the body of research published in JIME over the
years.

13. 13
Methodology
1
Searched the JIME archives for the terms ‘MOOC’ and
‘massive open online course’ and identified 25
articles with a clear focus on MOOCs for inclusion in
the collection.
2
Used a combination of approaches to examine
topics covered:
• Keyword analysis
• Thematic analysis

14. 14
Overview of MOOC-focused papers
Number of MOOC-focused papers published in JIME by year, since 2012

15. 15
Overview of MOOC-focused papers
Geographical location of authors by year, since 2012.
The 25 articles were contributed by 56 unique authors, from a range of locations.

16. 16
Overview of MOOC-focused papers
• The majority of articles present empirical papers (18), with a smaller proportion presenting
review or position papers (7).
• The methods used in the articles: Literature-based or theoretical; qualitative, quantitative
and mixed methods.
• Initially, literature-based and theoretical articles were more prevalent; over time this has
shifted towards a greater number of empirical papers.

17. 17
Overview of MOOC-focused papers
Methods used in the articles, according to year

18. 18
Topics covered in MOOC-focused papers
Network of keywords (blue nodes) associated with the 25 articles (orange nodes) in the
virtual special collection.
While keyword analysis gave some
sense of the recurring topics covered
by articles, a large number of the
keywords were unique, and the analysis
does not account for groups of different
but semantically similar words.

19. 19
Topics covered in MOOC-focused papers
Emergent themes identified through open coding of the 25 articles
(The full range of themes, and their frequency over time)

20. 20
Topics covered in MOOC-focused papers
13 emergent themes were consolidated into four clusters of unique articles

21. 21
Topics covered in MOOC-focused papers
1. Situating MOOCs
• Includes a cluster of articles which explore how MOOCs sit in relation to the broader
higher education ecosystem.
• Includes immediate response to the rapidly growing MOOC phenomenon, and articles
within this theme often use literature-based methods to make connections to the
wider field.
• Articles’ foci:
• definitions and history of the term
• Relevance of open, online and distance learning, formal and informal to the
emerging agenda around MOOCs
• Reshaping of formal education through MOOCs

22. 22
Topics covered in MOOC-focused papers
2. Learning design and roles
• The second cluster of articles relate to learning design and roles within higher
education and MOOCs.
• Articles represent a turn from the conceptualisation of MOOCs, towards the ‘how’ and
‘who’ of putting MOOCs into practice.
• It has two sub-themes:
• Examples reporting case studies of particular courses and their learning design
• Studies considering how roles and relationships for individuals were being
changed as a result of MOOCs

23. 23
Topics covered in MOOC-focused papers
3. MOOCs and Languages
• The first of the two themes which are more recent, with a median publication date of
2020.
• This cluster focuses on MOOCs and language from two perspectives.
• language as an access barrier particularly if learners are not speakers of English
• MOOCs for language learning purposes, known as Language or LMOOCs (also
includes studies on Translation and interpreting (TI) MOOCs)
• Examples of articles’ foci:
• The language of MOOCs as an access barrier
• integrating LMOOCs into university language programmes and degrees
• the potential of LMOOCs to support social inclusion

24. 24
Topics covered in MOOC-focused papers
4. Accessibility and inclusion
• The second of the two themes which are more recent (with a median publication date
of 2020).
• A change of focus over time emerged within accessibility and inclusion:
• Early years (2013–2015)- studies focused on accessibility in terms of accessible
language and access to the learning resources.
• 2015-2019- The focus shifts to the accessibility of MOOCs for disabled learners and
assistive technologies or from first-order access barriers such as language and
devices to MOOC accessibility with regard to meeting the needs of learners with a
disability.
• 2020 onwards- Studies appear to move away from technical and design aspects
of accessibility and focus on wider social access in terms of inclusion, equality and
equity.

25. 25
Looking ahead
Many MOOC stakeholders have commented on the future of these courses:
• Ahmed et al. (2022) predict Industry 5.0 technologies, including the Internet of Things
(IoT), Cloud Computing, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Gamification Technologies, and the
Metaverse, will significantly change MOOCs (better universal access, adaptive learning,
more security)
• Brown (2021) describes a new area of future growth for MOOCs, i.e. “schooling
education” where these courses will be used by younger learners and teachers.
• Shah (2021) predicts that MOOC providers will rely less on universities for course
creation, and they will be using corporate partners such as Google, Amazon and
Microsoft.
• Corbeil, Khan and Corbeil (2019) envisage that there will be more Al-powered MOOCs
for a more personalised learning experience.

26. Thank you!
Jordan, K and Goshtasbpour, F. (2022). JIME Virtual Special Collection – 2012 to 2022: The Decade
of the MOOC. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2022(1): 1, pp. 1–14. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5334/jime.757

27. Acknowledgement
All penguin illustrations in this presentation
are original versions of a selection of
images produced by Visual Thinkery for the
Go-GN (Global OER Graduate Network) and
are licensed CC BY 4.0.

28. Fereshte.Goshtasbpour@open.ac.uk
k.Jordan@lancaster.ac.uk