Abstract:

For a decade, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been plagued by high-dropout rates and low completion rates among online learners. Research shows that online learners often use dropping-in and dropping-out learning strategies and are very particular for what type of learning content they choose to integrate in their learning. In addition, we can observe a mass production of online courses that enables cross-comparison and ascertaining of quality in learning and instructional design. Recent research establishes that the quality of MOOCs is low when principles for instructional design are applied, a factor raising questions in the way MOOCs are produced and designed. In other words, there is an urgent need to address the pedagogical processes in which MOOCs are made. Learning design work must be casted to the forefront. In relation to this challenge, the main goal of this paper is to explain a collaborative support team model for co-creating high quality MOOCs. The collaborative support team model is called DRIVE-X and has been designed by a development and research group specializing in production of online courses at a large Norwegian university. The collaborative support team model has proven to be successful and innovative, an argument that will be demonstrated in this paper. This argument will be showed over the paper’s three parts. First, the DRIVE-X model will be explained, a collaborative support team model inspired by pedagogical ideas from instructional design, coaching and agile learning. Second, the paper will examine a case where the DRIVE-X model was applied and evaluated. A faculty working as an instructional designer and a video-producer from the university collaborated with two Senior Advisers from the Norwegian Directorate of Cultural Heritage, a collaboration resulting in a two-week MOOC about the preservation of Norwegian Stave Churches. We argue that the MOOC was innovative in various ways: The Senior Advisers from the Directorate provided the course content and were the course instructors, while the faculty and the video producer provided competence on learning design and video production. In this sense, the DRIVE-X model fostered a collaboration across two sectors, the university sector and work life. The paper’s second section will provide feedback on the nature and dynamics of the cross-sector collaboration. Third, the combined efforts of the cross-sector collaboration showed to be successful on the MOOC and learner experience. Research suggests that the first run of the self-instructed MOOC had a completion rate of almost 45 per cent among the online learners who took the online course, a number that is far higher than the average completion rate for MOOCs which is often 15 per cent. Also, the MOOC gained very positive feedback from the online learners.

Keywords:

MOOC, Norway, learning design, collaboration.