What’s the Matter with MOOCs? Socio-material Methodologies for Educational Research

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are fully online programmes of study, usually offering free participation, and often attracting enrolments in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Following partnerships between the prominent MOOC platforms and a number of elite universities, MOOCs have attracted unprecedented media attention and played an unparalleled role in surfacing issues of online education into the ‘mainstream’. In the words of Pappano’s often-cited New York Times article, 2012 was for education ‘the year of the MOOC’ (2012). The dramatic rise in attention was perhaps encapsulated by the UK universities minister David Willets publicizing his support for MOOC partnerships (Coughlan, 2013), and Daphne Koller, head of the US-based MOOC organization Coursera appearing at the G8 Global Innovation Conference (UKTI, 2013). No more simply a trend within the narrow field of educational technology, the MOOC seemed to have become international news. Thus, while critical responses to the MOOC have highlighted the long histories of technological innovation (Logue, 2012), and indeed ‘open’ education (Peter and Deimann, 2013) overlooked in the hyperbole, these high-profile courses have done much to place the ‘online’ at the centre of educational concerns. As the recent report from Universities UK asks, is the MOOC ‘Higher Education’s digital moment?’ (Universities UK, 2013).