MOOCs for Universities and Learners
An Analysis of Motivating Factors
Hugh Davis
1
, Kate Dickens
1
Manuel Leon
2
, Maria del Mar Sanchéz Vera
3
and Su White
2
1
Centre for Innovation in Technologies and Education, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, U.K.
2
Web and Internet Science, ECS, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, U.K.
3
Departments of Didactics and School Organisation, University of Murcia, Murcia, Spain
Keywords: MOOCs, Education Disruption, Motivations for Learning, Institutional Strategy.
Abstract: Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a recent introduction to the palette of educational offerings
yet in a short time they have become the subject of massive interest and hype. There are those that predict
that these free courses are the first ripple in the coming wave of disruption that the web and on-line
education will cause to traditional universities. However University investments in producing MOOCs are
increasing exponentially and at the same time learners are enthusiastically registering in their tens of
thousands for these courses. This paper describes some research into the motivations for universities to
create MOOCs and the motivations of learners in registering and completing them. Our results show a
spectrum of motivations for universities, and suggest a need for individual universities to be clear of where
they sit in that spectrum. For students we see that motivations can vary significantly across cultures.
1 INTRODUCTION
In September 2013 the first UK based MOOC
platform, FutureLearn, announced its first batch of
twenty MOOCs. These MOOCs ran in the final
quarter of 2013 and included the University of
Southampton’s first MOOC “Web Science: how the
web is changing the world”. The research described
in this paper was part of our attempt to answer the
questions “why are we doing this?” and “why would
the learners want to study MOOCs?”
These questions are worthy of discussion at a
time when the landscape for higher education is
widely predicted to change, as the result of the
disruption caused, mainly by the way the web is
changing the world! Reports such as Barber et al.,
2013 predict that business models for higher
education are about to collapse in much the same
way that the music industry’s business model
collapsed in the 2000’s; and possibly MOOCs are
the Napster in this scenario. These predictions are
being followed by real financial investment: text
book publishers are rapidly re-inventing themselves
as purveyors of on-line education, and lobbying
government for a level playing field with
universities; and venture capitalists are lining up at
universities’ doors trying to buy into a share of their
more popular courses. Venture capitalists expect
quick profits, so they are presumably banking on
rapid disruption. If MOOCs are at the frontier of
such disruption, then what is the motivation for
universities to embrace them rather than resist them?
In 2013 many universities, for example in the in
the UK FutureLearn Consortium, have been
investing greater sums of money in developing
single MOOCs (sums of £30K - £60K are regularly
quoted) than they have been accustomed to investing
in the development of much longer courses. It is
relevant therefore to ask what is the business model
for universities in making this investment.
When it comes to student motivation for
learning, teachers in higher education have insisted
for years that learning is driven by assessment (e.g.
Boud, 1995), and yet learners are registering for
MOOCs in an enormously wide range of subjects in
their tens of thousands. Clearly they are not
motivated by grades since in most MOOCs there are
no grades. So it is valid to ask why these students
are so interested in studying MOOCs.
In carrying out our research on student
motivation we wished to get beyond the survey of
the set of students that completed a particular
MOOC and to investigate some of the cultural
differences in motivations, so our results are based
105
Davis H., Dickens K., Leon M., Sánchez-Vera M. and White S..
MOOCs for Universities and Learners - An Analysis of Motivating Factors.
DOI: 10.5220/0004844901050116
In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2014), pages 105-116
ISBN: 978-989-758-020-8
Copyright
c
2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)
on a survey circulated by social media within the
UK, Spain and Syria.
2 METHODOLOGY
As indicated above, our research is divided into two
studies, looking at
1) Higher Education Institutions’ (HEI’s)
motivations to create MOOCs.
2) Learners’ motivations for participation
The two studies use different methodologies. Our
research on the motivations for universities was
carried out mainly as a meta-review of the literature,
but is also informed by our experiences and
discussions with FutureLearn partners.
For learners’ motivations an online survey was
conducted to gather information about those who
had participated in a MOOC, looking in depth into
the reasons why learners decided to register and
eliciting some reflections on their beliefs, attitudes
and behaviours when participating in a MOOC. The
questionnaire was analysed primarily by using a
quantitative method of frequencies of responses.
It might have been good to have surveyed a
number of HEIs about their motivations, but at
present this is a very competitive arena, and it would
be difficult to ensure the veracity or completeness f
the responses that might be received. It is likely that
this situation will change as the subject matures.
2.1 Methodology: HEIs' Motivations
For HEIs’ motivations a qualitative approach using
content analysis was conducted across a set of
around 60 articles to evaluate arguments about
whether or not HEIs should foster MOOCs.
2012 was really the year in which many MOOCs
became available, mostly through Coursera, edX and
Udacity in the USA. These MOOCs have now been
evaluated and we are now beginning to see many
papers published, but at the time we began this
research there were few academic articles and to
track the emerging phenomena of MOOCs it was
necessary to also observe the web-based grey
literature of journalistic articles, blogs and social
media.
2.1.1 Identification and Selection of Sources
Selected contributions published in three different
domains, were used: namely education technology
journals; HE magazines; and blog posts. The sources
were identified by using different search strategies
depending on the domain where the literature was
published. For the peer-reviewed academic literature
in journals, the method used was inspired by the
identification of sources in the systematic literature
review by Liyanagunawardena et. al. of MOOCs
carried out in 2013. The journalistic and blog (grey
literature) sources were drawn from the curated
collections of four educational technologists via the
Scoop.it social media site over the four months prior
to August 2013. These MOOC-focused curations
drew on a wide range of sources of which a more
reduced number were in turn chosen for this project,
seeding by provenance and perceived authority and
encompassing views which were either for or against
the adoption of MOOCs in HEIs. Sources were
primarily selected according to their relevance to the
topic of MOOCs in HEIs.
Academic literature was used to identify the
drivers of the emergence of MOOCs
Grey literature was used for identifying current
debates.
More rigour and credibility was credited to peer-
reviewed journal articles, than in journalistic pieces
and blog posts. Therefore, the selection of the papers
was focused on their content and relevance. The
selection of grey literature placed greater emphasis
on authorship and provenance because, as noted by
Daniel (2012), the media contains abundant
literature in which the intention of promoting
MOOCs as products for profit seeking undermines
the objectiveness of the judgements towards their
potential to improve the education delivery.
2.1.2 Analysis of Sources
Herring’s (2004) adaption of Krippendorf’s (1980)
Content Analysis (CA) method for online context
was used with the academic and journalistic corpora
of MOOC related sources. Apart from identification
and selection of sources explained above, CA
involves establishing of categories into which the
arguments in the sources are to be distributed. With
academic sources, MOOCs were placed into three
contexts in order to explain their emergence. These
contexts were
a) open education movements;
b) the evolution of technology in distance education;
c) disruptive innovations in education.
Because they were more opinion loaded, non-
academic sources were classified into debates of
sustainability, quality, and impact of MOOCs from
an institutional perspective (for more information
see León, 2013).
CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
106
2.2 Methodology: Learners’
Motivation
A MOOC heavily relies on the autonomy of the
student to control their learning process. Termed
“Self-regulated learning” (SRL), this concept which
emerged in the 80s addresses the question of how
students manage learning process, and includes
cognitive strategies, metacognition and motivation
(Zimmerman and Schunk, 2001). Motivation is an
important part of SRL. Specifically, intrinsic
motivation is needed to perform learning tasks as
part of the forethought, the strategic process that
precedes performance in learning (Barnard-Brak et
al, 2010). Arguably, analysing the intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation that leads a learner to take the
decision to register in a MOOC is not easy, because
there are many cognitive and affective components
involved. However, it is more feasible to understand
the reasons that may lead a person to consider
undertaking a MOOC. The data was gathered
through a questionnaire, from an empirical analytical
perspective. The questionnaire contains 24
questions, grouped by the following themes:
About you. This section had the goal to obtain
basic information about the participants: residence,
age, gender, occupation, kind of learner.
Education. Focused on level of education and to
know if parents attended University.
MOOC providers. To know if people had
participated in any MOOC before, when it was,
when and where they accessed to materials and what
device they used for that.
Motivation. Related to know which MOOC
platform have they used, how many MOOCs they
have done, if they interacted with others, tools used
in the MOOC experience, activities developed, and
finally, questions related with reasons for starting a
MOOC, and for abandoning it if that was the case.
The survey was designed and piloted. It was also
translated into Arabic and Spanish, to obtain data
from those language environments. The
questionnaire was published using the University of
Southampton web based survey tool iSurvey. The
responses to questionnaire were elicited through
Facebook, Twitter and email. Once the data was
collected, it was analysed through SPSS software.
The categorising and coding process of the variables
for the questionnaire was related to the type of
question (mainly nominal) and a direct reading of
the data was made by frequency calculation.
3 FINDINGS: MOTIVATIONS
FOR HEIS
3.1 MOOCs in Context
The analysis of the two sets of sources generated a
number of observations on the institutional
motivations and reactions to MOOCs.
The main observations In terms of the
established contexts of the emergence of MOOCs
determined by the analysis of academic sources,
were as follow:
Strategic Growth: Marshall, 2013, argues that
developing MOOCs is part of HEI strategic plans to
remain competitive in the market for learners
seeking and affordable education balancing the
‘bargaining power of buyers’ and the ‘bargaining
power of [competitor HEI] suppliers’.
Marketing: Delarocas & Alstyne, 2013 observe
that MOOCs are often introductory courses which
contribute to a recruitment marketing strategy aim to
reach large numbers of MOOC learners as a means
of targeting potential paying students
Strategic Collaboration: Universities are
gathering in consortia around emerging MOOC
platforms, such as Coursera and FutureLearn and
EdX. The University of Edinburgh’s report 2013
identified belonging to peer communities as a way to
explore new educational methods, and secure greater
reach and more presence for their courses.
Organic Growth / Evolution: Yuan & Powell,
2013 argue that MOOCs emerge as a natural
evolution of Open Educational Resources (OERs).
HEIs especially those already championing OERs,
such as Harvard and MIT are compelled to sustain
Open Education within this new format.
Response to Learners: Castells influential 2011
analyses contemporary societies’ emphasises use of
available technologies to engage in networked
interactions, in the ‘networked society’. Williams et.
al., 2012 observe that learners are not only ready to
learn collaboratively through social media but also
demand it. This trend has permeated the education
domain, and leading HEIs must develop pedagogical
approaches that fulfil these demands if they want to
maintain their top positions in the rankings.
Learner Analytics: MOOCs produce large
quantities of learner data. This is valuable data that
can inform the design of enhanced, customised and
effective instructional methods, which may in turn
raise the perceived quality of tuition in universities,
and hence improve competitiveness. Analysing these
datasets can shed light on collective and individual
learning processes and patterns (De Liddo et. al.
MOOCsforUniversitiesandLearners-AnAnalysisofMotivatingFactors
107
2011), learners’ engagement levels in different
course stages (Breslow et al, 2013), or their potential
for success or failure (Barber and Sharkey 2012).
Educational Enhancement: taken collectively the
observations above also suggest that educational
enhancement is either a sub-objective or a happy
consequence of MOOC participation.
3.2 Main Debates on MOOCs
An extensive survey on the contemporary grey
literature identified three areas of sustainability,
quality, and impact in which the debates were more
frequent and intense. Within sustainability two main
themes occupied most of the debates, 1) analogies
with other business initiatives; 2) learners’ sustained
participation.
The business analogy of sustainability
championed by Marginson (2012), Young (2012),
and the Economist (2013) draws parallels between
MOOCs and successful business models of Silicon
Valley initiatives such as Google and eBay, who
made early investments, provided free services, and
now make substantial profit. Weston, 2012 presents
another side of the debate citing the experience of
companies who suffered the dotcom bubble;
Ptascynsky, 2013 suggests that universities will
realise that they do not external platforms to run
MOOCs, since universities can provide fairly
feasible technological solutions without the need of
third parties.
The sustainability of learners’ participation,
debate has optimist commentators such as Lawton &
Katsomitros, 2013 arguing that high numbers of
enrolling students provide an opportunity for novel
sustainable business models whereby some costs are
met by institutions, governments and future
employers while students pay for assessment and
certification.
However, the interpretation of the high drop-out
rates is contentious and relate to the quality of
provision as well as sustainability. Sceptics like
Tauber, 2013 see them as a serious issue rooted in a
poor conceptualisation and design. Kollowitch 2013;
2013a illustrates the failure of MOOC models with
concrete examples, such as the bad experiences with
MOOCs of Colorado State University and San Jose
State University. However Catropa, 2013 counters
this sceptical view as a mistake of underestimating
the high number of students who actually complete a
MOOC despite the high drop-out rates and Parr,
2013 claims it ignores the fact that many learners
who do not complete a MOOC still benefit from it.
There were frequent debates in the media
regarding the quality of MOOCs. Sceptics see them
as not being able to reproduce the discussions that
takes place in small face-to-face group settings,
which are deemed as the only way meaningful
learning can take place (Rheingold, 2013;
Brighouse, 2013). A frequent counterargument is
that seminar discussions can and have been
reproduced successfully in web-based experiences
(Davidson, 2013). Also, many recognise that MOOC
tuition quality might be lower due to the ratio of
students to teacher, but it is still reasonable for those
who will otherwise not access HE (Horn, 2013).
A further motivational factor to HEI involvement
in MOOCs is their impact and spread. Lewin, 2012
compares it with a tsunami; the more universities
join the movement, the more universities will be
urged to join it. This tsunami will fuel a revolution
in HE. However, sceptical views, such as that of
Drezzner (2013), situate the current enthusiasm in
the beginning of a hype cycle that will soon deflate.
3.3 MOOCs as Distance Education
The literature identifies six distinct generations of
distance education associated with the role of
technology in each step: (Nipper, 1989, Taylor,
1995, 2001; Fozdar and Kumar, 2007; Caladine,
2008) MOOCs can be considered alongside this
timeline.
First Generation: a “correspondence model”,
studying via mail.
Second generation: incorporated technologies
such as video.
Third Generation: combining tools and
telecommunications (Nipper, 1989), also referred to
as “telelearning”, e.g. incorporating the use of
videoconferencing. It is also the moment when
educational concepts as “open education” and
“flexible learning” emerge
Fourth Generation: “the flexible learning
model” Taylor (1995) emphasises the use of
technology and the Internet in the 90s from
different Universities, with the first eLearning
experiences.
Fifth Generation: adds the emergence of Virtual
Learning Environments (VLE), the use of Virtual
Campus and resources processes characterized by
automation systems (Taylor, 2001).
Sixth Generation: based on Web 2.0, like a
model of progress of interactive environments.
(Caladine, 2008). Blogs, wikis and social networks
have changed the way people use the Internet, and
represent new opportunities to learn.
Perhaps MOOCs will become the seventh
CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
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generation in distance education. Clearly they enact
a model of distance education. The current “boom”
in the university narrative created by MOOCs
suggest some turning point in distance education.
Although perhaps in terms of a formalized
educational understanding of MOOCs it is rather
early to make that claim.
3.4 Structure and Assessment in
MOOCs
Two distinct kinds of MOOC are widely recognised:
xMOOCs and cMOOCs. The xMOOCs focus on
course content and are typically located on a single
web platform which provides access to the contents.
cMOOCs are related to connectivistm incorporating
the design and realisation of networked learning and
based on the ideas of Siemens (2012a, 2012b) They
start from the idea that we learn when we connect
with other people, accordingly cMOOCs manifest in
a more open format working with social and
collaborative tools.
In early MOOCs, the opportunity provided by
participating in a MOOC was not to primarily obtain
a certificate, but to learn. This aspect of cMOOCs is
highlighted because “participation in a MOOC is
emergent, fragmented, diffuse, and diverse. There is
no credit or certificate offered for completion”
(McAuley et al., 2010).
More recently, many MOOCs, particularly,
xMOOCs, offer certification (free or charged),
providing participants the chance to formally record
their learning and thereby to improve their CV.
O’Toole, 2013, in a discussion paper looking at peer
assessment, asserts that “whereas in the cMOOC
participants are primarily interested in building the
collective capabilities of the whole network, and
hence are more likely to use feedback and ratings
systems honestly, in xMOOCs participants are
aiming to get a good personal grade”. A demand for
validated certification exists and some companies
are beginning to sign agreements with institutions to
provide MOOC participants with such services e.g.
the agreement between Udacity and Pearson to
create a network of assessment centres, and a similar
agreement between Miriadax, the Spanish MOOC
platform and Telefonica.
4 FINDINGS: MOTIVATIONS OF
LEARNERS
4.1 Findings
A total of 258 questionnaires were completed: 52
English, 193 Arabic, 40 Spanish. The majority of
respondents were in the 18-24 age range there are
variations depending on the survey language
identified throughout the survey. Male respondents
formed the majority (72.5%). We note that this
sample may not be typical of the MOOC learner
community as it has so far emerged in the USA and
UK, where typical figures indicate roughly equal
participation across the age range and genders. We
assume that the method of distributing the survey
may have had an effect.
Table 1: The majority of respondents were male.
English 67.3% male
Arabic 77.2% male
Spanish 48.7% male
When participants were asked about the
platform, figure 1, Coursera leads by far over other
platforms. However, this percentage is higher in the
English questionnaire than in the rest. It is
important to note that close to the 25% of those
who answered the questionnaire in Spanish
identified a platform tailored to Spanish language
MOOCs called Miriadax, Similarly Arabic
respondents indicated a range of other platforms,
such as the Virtual Syrian University. (Note that at
the time of this survey, FutureLearn had not yet
launched).
Figure 1: MOOC platform used.
A large volume of interesting data have been
obtained from this questionnaire, however, the
remainder of this paper will focus on motivation
related data, concentrating on reasons that that led
respondents to participate in a MOOC. In this
section, respondents could choose from a number of
options and could check more than one. Carefully
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Coursera
Edx
Udacity
Khan Academy
Novoed
Udemy
Iversity
Three House
MOOCsforUniversitiesandLearners-AnAnalysisofMotivatingFactors
109
analysing these data, a number of reasons normally
found in the web and scientific discussions, appear
to be confirmed. Figure 2 shows all options:
The following analysis explores the findings,
indicating whether or not they underpin, widely
perceived motivations behind learners on MOOCs.
Figure 2: Distribution of responses about motivation.
4.1.1 MOOCs are Free and Open
Free availability is the important factor according to
the survey selected by 67%. A particularly high
number of respondents from the Spanish
questionnaire selected this option (72.5%).
Providing educational resources for free is not a
new and open licensing for software, resources and
learning objects is well established. MIT launched
the Open Course Ware project (OCW), in 2001 to
share web-based teaching materials under Creative
Commons licenses. The main difference between
MOOCs and OCW is that while initiatives like
OCW focus on sharing teaching materials,
Universities are using MOOCs to realise a complete
learning process. Learners are not only able to
access the material, but they can also follow lessons,
develop activities, talk with online-classmates, and
even be evaluated, all for free and usually open.
If freeness is a fundamental aspect that motivates
students to follow a MOOC, and it would be
interesting to know which aspect of this is most
relevant to them.
4.1.2 MOOCs are Convenient: Fitting
around Life
There are clear differences in motivation related to
fitting study time around your life, in general, this
selection is not chosen by a lot of people (36%), but
it is of interest. The Arabic responses show 27.5%
interested in this aspect, the Spanish represents 65%.
The majority of Spanish participants were in full
time employment which may be the reason that they
rate this aspect as relevant.
4.1.3 MOOCs Update Knowledge and
Improve CVs
The question A MOOC helps to improve a CV:
appears more related to the need for certification to
be shown in a CV. In the survey, improving CV was
selected by 54.4% of all participants as one reason to
use the knowledge in a MOOC, but this percentage
rose to 61.7% of Arabic participants, probably
because the majority were students. This is
consistent with other studies, for example in the
study by Duke University (Belanger & Thornton,
2013 this is been highlighted as the main reason
students participated. A MOOC helps to update
knowledge: has been highlighted by many as very
relevant and motivation. Specifically 59.1% of
Arabic and 70% of Spanish participants said that one
main reason to do a MOOC is to refresh knowledge.
4.1.4 MOOCs Build a Social Learning
Community
MOOCs may have social components that motivate
learners to register to participate. Some 55.8% of
respondents affirmed they were the first among
acquaintances, family, colleagues and friends to
participate in a MOOC. However 124 respondents
from 285 found out about MOOCs via social media
and then decided to participate. MOOCs can
represent an opportunity for socialization. Online
community has become increasingly important in
the Internet user’s life. Web 2.0 tools (blogs, wikis,
social networks) make the Web as a place to develop
social community where participation is important.
4.1.5 MOOCs Satisfy Interest and Are
Useful
In a market with a lot of options, MOOCs can
represent a new way to learn and access to
interesting digital content. Interest in the topic is one
important reason for participating in a MOOC,
56.8% overall. English respondents showed the
highest preference with 80% of English respondents
selecting this aspect.
Usefulness also features; 60.6% of participants
overall declared they would use the knowledge
CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
110
gained during the MOOC in a personal project, and
63.2% in personal development These data follow
the same line as other research, such as Duke
University, in North Carolina, USA, which found
that interest in the topic was identified by 87% of the
students as a motivational aspect (Belanger &
Thornton, 2013). In this same study, many students
indicated that they thought the course would be fun
and enjoyable. This aspect of ‘edutainment’ where
usefulness and fun intersect may be of real
importance.
4.1.6 MOOCs Enable Learning with the
Best
The origin of MOOCs in prestigious Universities, or
by the effort of high profile or world leading
academics may explain their apparent popularity and
rapid growth and their power to attract the attention
to many different learners. Although not quite the
majority, about half the respondents, 48.1%,
identified ‘provider was a word class university’ as a
reason for participation. The power of some
Universities is apparent. There is some difference by
origin of respondents. English respondents show the
least interest at 38.5%; Spanish 43%; Arabic 51.8%.
4.1.7 MOOCs Provide Professional
Development and Lifelong Learning
The University of Edinburgh report summarising of
the experience of their six Coursera MOOCs in May,
2013 observed “In general, we attracted adults with
high educational attainments”. That is reflected in
the survey 208 of the 282 have a degree (mainly
undergraduate 133 of 285. There are more post-
doctorate learners in English and Spanish than in
Arabic respondents.
The largest represented age range (50,5%), is
between 18 and 24 but there are a lot of differences
depending on the scope: most Arabic users are in the
range of 18-24 years old, this percentage decreases
in English and even more so in the Spanish results,
in where the largest represented age range is the 25-
34 years old.
Motivations for 18 to 34 years may be closely
related to the opportunity to improve their career,
and moreover, enhance their professional network.
Half the respondents indicated that participating in a
MOOC enabled them to enhance their professional
development and improve their knowledge in the
workplace. Among Spanish participants the
percentage identifying this as an important factor
rises to 77.5%
Figure 3: How will you use the knowledge gained during
your MOOC.
The survey asked how respondents would use the
knowledge gained in the MOOC (figure 3). The
most widely identified factors were personal
development and projects. In a world increasingly
multidimensional and diverse, MOOCs can work in
Universities as a piece of the system providing open
learning opportunities forming part of the learner’s
personal learning network. Professional and personal
development needs are increasing alongside rapid
business change. Therefore, MOOCs can offer a
learning opportunity for people to develop life long
learning.
5 ISSUES
5.1 Pedagogic Possibilities or Illusion?
The UK Department for Business, Innovation and
Skills published a report in September 2013
reviewing the MOOC literature. They identified two
trends in educational press, blogs and general media.
One enthusiastically promoting MOOCs and
reporting positively on learning experience and
innovative forms of pedagogy, focusing on concepts
like collaboration and community. A second
sceptical view focussed on two fundamental flaws:
the supposed benefits of MOOCs are the victory of
content packaging; and the MOOC format itself is
exclusive and does not have enough quality to
develop skills in learners.
Educational technologists have spent years
arguing that learning online is not only about
content. In 1995 Bates suggested that open and
flexible education should consist of the provision of
flexible learning, built around geographical, social,
and time constraints of each student, instead of being
built around educational institutions' needs. The
opportunity offered by the Internet for teaching and
learning is change enable learning opportunities
within flexible models, How can a MOOC,
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University examns
Personal…
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Improve CV
Professional…
Entering job market
Changing career…
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developed for hundreds or thousands of students,
meet these aspirations? Educationally, MOOCs are
only a small part of the multiplicity of wider
international University systems. They cannot be
assumed to be the panacea that will solve all
educational problems.
Moreover, the very high drop out rate behind
MOOCs is widely recognised. Clow et al. (2013)
categorise that phenomena as “the funnel of
participation”. The funnel consists of four stages of
participation: awareness; registration; activity and
progress. What is not know is the extent of the
participants satisfaction with the their (perhaps very
limited) participation. However, “bad experiences”
with MOOCs have been reported. In July 2013
“Inside Higher Ed” reported that, after six months of
high-profile experimentation, San Jose State
University plans to “pause” its work with Udacity,
because “preliminary findings from the spring
semester suggest students [in online joint
Udacity/San Jose courses] do not fare as well as
students who attended normal classes”.
5.2 Assuring Assessment for Learning
The volume of learners in MOOCs perhaps
inevitable makes feedback and the assessment two
highly debated aspects MOOCs. In general, before
MOOCs, assessment in learning online was a
challenge for educators, mainly because it is an area
that has seen little change. MOOCs are
demonstrations of assessment online and at scale.
Since technologies allow focus upon and tracking of
the student learning process, e-assessment need not
be an action that occurs only at the end of the
course. However, taking into consideration skills
and other aspects of the learning process, there is a
lack of systems that facilitate a complete assessment,
(Strither, 2002; Driscoll, 2007; Radenkovic et al,
2010).
Another desirable and thus important aspect of
the learning process is feedback, assessment for
learning. Feedback on assessment online is not
always integrated in the mechanisms that assess
students. It is challenging in a MOOC environment
to develop effective assessments where, feedback
reinforces learning and identifies inconsistencies in
the learner process,.
Additionally, the “massive” (independent and
remote) nature inherent to MOOCs, makes it more
difficult to develop high quality assessment.
Although some MOOCs incorporate “peer
assessment”, O´Toole (2013) notes that, rather than
peer assessment, it should be called “peer-grading”,
since it cannot be assumed that an equal or adequate
level of understanding about assessment is possessed
by all MOOC learners.
5.3 Costs – Benefit or Risk?
MOOCs are in principle free for students, although
some platforms now incorporate a fee for a
certificate of participation. MOOCs are not free for
institutions. Universities have to invest time and
money designing and uploading materials, managing
the course, providing feedback. It is not clear if this
model is sustainable over the time.
Luján (2012) discusses an interesting perspective
that the most important American universities may
be using MOOCs to protect themselves against a
possible outbreak of "the bubble of Universities".
This stresses the hypothesis that a MOOC can work
for universities as an initiative to contain costs and
enrol more students, thus obtaining more revenue
and helping to resolve the crisis in the sector
Yuan and Powell (2013) suggest that companies
may want to invest in MOOCs in order to enhance
the company brand or a route to a new income
stream from Higher Education business. Such
motives may lie behind some companies signing
agreements with institutions to provide services to
MOOCs, such as the contract between Pearson and
Udacity to create a network of evaluation centres.
5.4 Widening Inequalities
MOOCs can create inequalities at different levels:
among students, across educators, between
institutions, and even at a global level. Regarding
students, Cookson (2013) points out that job seekers
with MOOC certificates will pose weak competition
to those with traditional degrees. Carlson &
Blumerstyk (2013) note that the skills needed in a
tertiary sector driven economy such as talking in
public or business etiquette can only be acquired
through face-to-face tuition. Those who most need
these skills are the most disadvantaged, mainly due
to their social backgrounds, and MOOCs may not be
able to empower them.
Educators can also face inequalities following a
massive adoption of MOOCs. While scalability
could allow an elite of ‘superstar’ professors
reaching massive audiences, it may leave the rest of
educators in precarious conditions (Engler, 2013).
At institutional level, universities that can afford
the costs of engaging in MOOCs may leave
competitor institutions with little market share, as
massive uptake could lead to centralisation.
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Although widely contested, Sebastian Thrun’s
prediction that only a few universities would be
needed in the world (Leckart, 2012) should not
perhaps be taken lightly.
Finally, at a global level, Sloep (2013) explains
that, far from promoting inclusion, MOOCs promote
cultural imperialism, because “developing countries
lack the financial and human resources to develop an
educational system of high quality, so when they
confronted with MOOCs they cannot afford the
luxury of refusing them”.
5.5 Learners’ Digital Competencies
From the first reports about MOOCs (Group
MOOC, 2013; Osvaldo, 2013) a clear profile of
learners that participate in MOOCs emerges;
postgraduates and professionals. Brown (2013)
points out that perhaps others e.g. undergraduate
students are unlikely to possess the skills needed to
be an autonomous learner in a MOOC.
Although such skills may be a prerequisite to
effectively participating in MOOCs a wide range of
people that do not have such skills can and do enrol.
It would be interesting to investigate if the dropout
found in MOOCs could be in part explained for the
fact that there are people who register but they feel
later they are not able to follow it for lack of skills.
5.6 Certification to Overcome
Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is another issue to be borne in mind for a
number of reasons. Firstly, if certification and
accreditation are to become a significant part of the
MOOC business models, the certificates issued by
HEIs need a credibility that might be undermined by
potential academic integrity breaches easily
achieved from the anonymity of the web.
Also, the concept of plagiarism is not the same in
all cultures. As Wilkinson notes (2008) students in
certain Asian countries do not see plagiarism as an
academic integrity breach, but as a way to show
respect to the authority of the content producer.
Therefore, universities not only should incorporate
plagiarism detection software in their MOOCs, but
also emphasize and clarify the principles of
academic integrity expected in their programmes.
6 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
This paper has examined the motivations of
institutions for making MOOCs and the motivations
of learners for registering and completing them. It is
clear that these are not simple matters so it is not
surprising that there are no simple answers.
However there are some useful understandings that
we gained from our studies, surveys and interactions
with other MOOCers that should be borne in mind
when considering motivations.
When it comes to considering institutions’
motivations to produce MOOCs, we need to
understand that institutions are very much aware of
predictions for the way the learning landscape will
change with the disruption caused by on–line
learning; forward thinking institutions believe that
they need to be agile and respond to these changes.
Creating MOOCs can be seen as a way of
enhancing the institution’s reputation, not only in the
subject area of the MOOC, but also in the area of
quality on-line learning. Furthermore, internally, in
the university, the enthusiasm and skills that go into
producing MOOCs are the same that are needed to
grow internal capacity for engaging with and
producing quality on-line learning courses.
In the near future we may expect to see much
softer dividing lines between accredited courses and
MOOCs, on-campus education and off-campus
education as universities start to make use of their
MOOC materials to add value to their accredited
courses, and in the extreme to produce whole
programmes based on MOOC materials, as we
starting to see with, for example, the Georgia Tech
Computer Science MSc.
From the point of view of learners there would
appear to be two important groups – those that see
doing MOOCs as a form of Edutainment; perhaps an
alternative to TV for the more discerning adult while
another group are those that are seeking educational
improvement for the sake of improving their career
and life prospects.
MOOCs come in for much criticism for the high
drop out rates, with only a small percentage of
starters completing the course. But we need to be
aware that the motivations of those who register for
MOOCs are diverse and may be very different from
those who register for University programmes. For a
start, many who register may have no intention of
finishing – they are equivalent to forum ‘lurkers’
those who just want to have a look inside the course,
and the only way to do this is often to register.
Secondly, the many users who sign up motivated by
the edutainment will have a very different attitude to
perseverance if the course turns out to be less
interesting, more time consuming or harder than
they had expected, than if they were signed up, at a
personal cost, to a course that they believed to be
MOOCsforUniversitiesandLearners-AnAnalysisofMotivatingFactors
113
critical to their future.
Finally, we should not assume that all learners
intended to complete the whole course. Many
learners may only be interested in part of the course,
or may have time constraints that they knew when
they started that would not enable them to complete
the course. Nevertheless, since MOOCs are free and
there is no penalty for failure to complete, many
learners are enabled to drop in (and out) of courses
at their own convenience. This should be a cause for
educational celebration rather than criticism and
represents learner choice and independence.
The authors are currently conducting further
research jointly with the UK Higher Education
Academy (HEA) attempting to identify the different
behaviours and patterns that emerge from the range
of motivations that learners express.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge the work
and enthusiasm of Olja Rastic Dulborough and
Maraim Masoud two students who worked on
internships in the Centre for Innovation in
Technologies and Education (CITE) for the summer
vacation of 2013. We would also like to
acknowledge the respondents who freely gave time
to reply to our survey.
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