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MOOC—making and open educational practices

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Abstract

MOOCs have been seen as holding promise for advancing Open Education. While the pedagogical design of the first MOOCs grew out of the Open Education Movement, the current trend has MOOCs exhibiting fewer of the original openness goals than anticipated. The aim of this study is to examine the practices and attitudes of MOOC educators at an African university and ask whether and how their practices and attitudes become open after creating and teaching a MOOC. Activity Theory is used to contextually locate the educators’ motivations and to analyse their practices in terms of striving towards an object. With this lens we describe how educators’ openness-related practices and attitudes change over time in two different MOOCs. Two sets of conceptions of open practices are used to detect instances of change, providing four dimensions of changed open educational practices. Semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and artefacts provide data for this rare study, which considers these issues from the perspective of the Global South. Through studying the educators’ practices in relation to openness, it becomes evident how open practices are emergent and responsive.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Laura Czerniewicz, Andrew Deacon, Michael Glover & Sukaina Walji

Authors
  1. Laura Czerniewicz
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  2. Andrew Deacon
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  3. Michael Glover
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  4. Sukaina Walji
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Correspondence to Andrew Deacon or Michael Glover.

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Czerniewicz, L., Deacon, A., Glover, M. et al. MOOC—making and open educational practices. J Comput High Educ 29, 81–97 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-016-9128-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12528-016-9128-7

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