Pacing through MOOCs: Course Design or Teaching Effect?

Despite the original tenets about openness and participatory characteristics of MOOCs [1], the majority of MOOCs are delivered in a semi-structured asynchronous way bridging the strong structure of traditional courses -signposted by lectures, tutorials/seminars and activities/assignment deadlinesand open courseware in which student are able to select their own learning paths and goals. Looking at the activity of students in three different MOOCs delivered on the Coursera platform, we considered the effects of different course design to observe variations in the way students pace through the courses. The analysis (in progress) suggests that the course design and the mode of teaching strongly influence the way in which students progress and complete the courses. However, more research needs to be done on the individual variations and on the supporting mechanisms which could be put in place to scaffold students’ development of their own learning paths and matching their intended goals.