ENTWURFSVERSION VEROumlFFENTLICHT ALS Pscheida Daniela Anja Lorenz Andrea Liszligner undNina Kahnwald (2013) lsquoThe Course is Yours Connecting Students and Teachers as ConnectivistLearners with Open Online Coursesrsquo In EDULEARN13 5th annual International Conference on Ed-ucation and New Learning Technologies Barcelona Spain International Association of TechnologyEducation und Development (iated) URL httplibraryiatedorgviewPSCHEIDA2013COU Slideshttpprezicomw_rdr0c3s-o7the-course-is-yours-connecting-students-and-teachers-as-connectivist-learners-with-an-open-online-course (Stand 29 06 2014)

Full Paper

The Course is Yours Connecting Studentsand Teachers as Connectivist Lear- ners

with Open Online CoursesDaniela Pscheidalowast Anja Lorenzdagger Andrea LiszlignerDagger

Nina Kahnwaldsect

Open online courses represent one of the most interesting and promis-ing trends in e-learning (Johnson Adams Becker Cummins et al 2013)Openly available on the Internet and accessible free of charge these coursesinvite an unlimited number of people from all countries and backgrounds totake part ndash therefore they are also known as MOOCs (massive open onlinecourses)

Within the project ldquoSOOC ndash Saxon Open Online Courserdquo that started inApril 2013 a connectivist open online course is designed and conductedSpecial about this course is it not only connects at least seven faculties atthree different universities in Germany but also enables a common learningby students and teachers of these universities and disciplines Moreover itis open to all interested people via the Web Another feature is formativeassessment by means of the e-portfolio approach In opposite to the tra-ditional assessment methods the learners shall create and publish variousartifacts in several social media tools and platforms like blogs or wikis Ar-tifacts can be commented and criticized by other participants and therefore

lowastTechnical University Dresden Germany danielapscheidatu-dresdendedaggerChemnitz University of Technology Germany anjalorenzwirtschafttu-chemnitzdeDaggerTechnical University Dresden Germany andrealissnertu-dresdendesectUniversity of Siegen Germany ninakahnwalduni-siegende

1

enhance the learning results of the learning group as well as of the singlelearner

This paper introduces the concept of the Saxon Open Online Course (SOOC)addressing in particular the typical challenges of connectivist open onlinecourses in higher education settings and presents potential solutions as wellas first experiences and evaluation results

Keywords MOOC Higher Education Massive Open Online Courses e-portfolios

1 Massive Open Online Courses From Trend Reports toEveryday University Life

Talking about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) often involves the notion ofldquofirst timesrdquo Within the 2013 Horizon Report MOOCs are listed for the first time as anew trend in technology enabled learning this year (Johnson Adams Becker Cumminset al 2013) Moreover also for the first time in the history of the annual published Hori-zon Report this firstly mentioned trend is suggested to be already established withinthis year Current developments give the impression that the predicted ldquoyear of theMOOCrdquo (Pappano 2012) will come true With the MOOC Production Fellowship1 ini-tiated by the Stifterverband fuumlr die Deutsche Wissenschaft (a donorrsquos association forGerman science system) and the iversity learning platform2 a funding competition of255 MOOC concepts is currently running Of course one might discuss the chickenand egg problem of real trends and exaggerated hypes stimulated by trend reports ndashthe growing number of MOOCs and funding programs can not be denied though

To explain MOOCs it is best to do this backwards (McAuley et al 2010 Robes 2012)MOOCs at first are courses with an agenda that provides a learning opportunity Allagenda items are online events or tasks that can be accessed from all over the worldbecause they are declared as open This openness usually includes access (everybodycan participate without being part of a university or having special diplomas) learn-ing scenarios (no predefined learning objective) and resources (all content needed forthe course is accessible without costs) When first MOOCs started in North Americathe Brobdingnagian amount of participants lead the ldquoinventorsrdquo George Siemens andStephen Downes to add the M for massive to describe this special learning setting (Hill2012)

Disregarding xMOOCs in this paper we concentrate on connectivist MOOCs (cMOOCs)as a kind of MOOCs building up on the connectivist learning approach (Siemens 2005)Posing the question of new perspectives on higher education the paper presents a casestudy of planning starting and first evaluations of an institutional cMOOC Theoreticalfoundations of connectivism and connectivist MOOCs are described in section 2 Withthe Saxon Open Online Course 2013 (sooc13) we start the very first MOOC projectthat is officially acknowledged for students in Saxony and Siegen For them it can

1httpsmoocfellowshiporginfo (Retrieved 2013-05-16)2httpwwwiversityorg (Retrieved 2013-05-16)

2

be credited with ECTS and so the MOOC counts as a credited university course Andmore than this it is also acknowledged in training programs for university staff in Sax-ony and North Rhine-Westphalia Thus implications for the MOOC learning scenariocaused by this institutional framing are covered in section 3 section 4 presents currentsolutions and special features of the sooc13 as a case study First results of an initialsurvey on motivation of participants are presented in section 5 An outlook on furtherplans and evaluation steps is given in section 6

2 Connectivism and MOOCs

We live in a digital networked world where information can be accessed and updatedin real time around the clock Our mediatized life is not only rich in input the wealthof information also creates a new framework for dealing with knowledge and learningSo firstly we are to structure the ever-growing information assets and make meaningfulchoices of these Secondly it is necessary to face the simultaneous decay of informa-tion by the readiness for lifelong learning Formerly established strategies of personalknowledge acquisition have to change accordingly

The approach of connectivism developed by George Siemens focusses exactly at thispoint (see here and for the following sections Siemens (2005)) Faced with growingsocial knowledge resources on the one hand and decreasing half-live of informationand knowledge with respect to the validity of knowledge on the other hand in thecourse of our lives we are forced to learn continuously and thereby get in touch withdifferent fields of knowledge As learning is more and more a lifelong task informallearning receives an increasingly important role Learning can and has to occur alwaysand everywhere ndash and in many different ways

In this context of course technologies play a crucial role since they enable free andflexible learning in the first place but also shape our learning process or even take oversingle steps Nevertheless one of the main and most important observations Siemensmakes in relation to current changes in learning is that a rapidly changing society of-ten requires decisions and activities of the individual which are standing outside of thepersonal experiences or knowledge background In these situations it is of great im-portance to be able to specifically access the experience and knowledge of other personsand to associate them with the own level of knowledge

The established learning theories behaviourism cognitivism and constructivism showsignificant shortcomings just here as Siemens makes clear Firstly they do not considerthe role of technology adequately Secondly they overemphasize the single individualso that learning processes outside the individual and exchange processes between theindividual and the organization are not really describable

The connectivism offers an alternate theory here as learning is understood as a pro-cess of making connections which ldquoare more important than our current state of know-ingrdquo (ibid) The ability to see connections between fields ideas and concepts and tokeep these connections remain stable over time is thus one of the core competencies ofthe digital age

3

Based on this new understanding of knowledge and learning George Siemens and hisCanadian colleague Stephen Downes developed the first Massive Open Online Coursetitled ldquoConnectivism and Connective Knowledgerdquo in 2008 for which over 2200 partici-pants had registered The logical conclusion of connectivist courses set in the traditionof CCK08 is not to give priority to the delivered content but to the development ofnetworking skills (cf (Robes 2012)) In the summer of 2011 the first Germanspeak-ing Open Online course on the future of learning with 900 registered participants tookplace (OPCO11) (Bremer 2012) More German-speaking MOOCs joined in and therewas even a MOOC-Maker-Course (MMC13) that can be seen as a Meta MOOC e g aMOOC on issues related to the implementation of MOOCs

Setting up a MOOC certain basic elements have proven helpful (Robes 2012) Anagenda names a weekly topic and provides reading recommendations and suggestionsfor activities or tasks Live events i e online presentations of various speakers providefurther input and are often the highlight of a MOOC week Any further activities aredriven decentralized by learners Participants e g discuss the actual topic in postson their own blogs communicate on Twitter or share interesting links In order toallocate the contributions of the MOOC those are tagged with a particular keywordor Hashtag (e g cck08 or opco11 or mmc13) so that other participants can followthem ndash but they do not need to do that Each learner is responsible for its own learningprocess and thus also for its personal learning success Roles of teachers and learnersare translucent by the active contributions of the participants rsquoNormalrsquo participantsbecome knowledge providers and the initiators of the MOOCs are not tied to the roleof the teacher which is why the name of the ldquohostrdquo is becoming increasingly popular

3 Special Features of MOOCs in Universities

Todayrsquos universities face the challenge not only to prepare their students in technicalterms for their future professional activities but more than ever also to convey so-cial methodological and personality-related competencies The 2012 Horizon Reportin Higher Education emphasizes increasingly decentralized flexible and collaborativeworking environments and the need for new education paradigms and well-suitedlearning models in direction of challenge-based and active learning as ldquokey trendsrdquowhich will change the higher education landscape sustainably during the next years(see Johnson Adams Becker and Cummins (2012 pp 4 sq)) Of course all of thesetrends are strongly connected with new technologies as social media or mobile devicesAccordingly especially the ability to initiate organize and structure self-directed andself-responsible learning processes beyond formal institutional settings is becomingmore and more essential To train this and to get to know their own learning behaviourlearners primarily must have the opportunity to gain experiences in informal learningcontexts In classical curricula unfortunately therersquos little to no space for such learningexperiences

E- and blended-learning approaches already make an important contribution to breakup and expand the rigid framework of classroom teaching to the open space of an indi-

4

vidual learner-driven design of learning processes in online phases At the same timewe can observe that the interactive and communicative possibilities of learning man-agement systems (LMS) often are not used by students in the desired manner Thusthe learning platform usually acts solely as kind of storage for courserelated materialswhile communication and cooperation take part via other channels like social networksites (eg Facebook) An important reason for this is certainly to be seen in the factthat the World Wide Web already provides a variety of practical tools which are usedanyway by todayrsquos students for various purposes (see Kerres (2006 pp 5 sqq)) In thisrespect the phenomenon of the learning platform as an ldquoisland in the internetrdquo (Kerres(ibid p 5)) counteracts the potential of Web 20 adversely since the actual learningprocesses occur usually outside of the platform so that the collective of students insidethe course benefit only indirectly

But this explanation describes only one part of the problem In addition many stu-dents act and understand themselves as recipients of well-prepared knowledge (SchaarschmidtKoumlhler and Dietsch 2012) This rsquoconsumer attitudersquo partially also conveyed by theBologna reform counteracts the development of the required selflearning skills in thecontext of universities and later working environments

Today these needs are regarded for all academic disciplines Therefore innovativeteaching-learning scenarios that are adapted to the current life and future work andthat further enhance studentsrsquo learning and information skills need to be developed ndashespecially supported by Web 20 technologies The challenge however in addition tothe transfer of theoretical knowledge on new concepts of networked learning is pro-viding spaces for the practical experiments and gathering personal experiences Forthis the concept of an Open Online Course (OOC) offers the perfect setting to enableself-organized networked learning experiences in an open environment initiated andsupported by instructors

However beyond few lighthouse projects (e g the OPCO11 see Bremer (2012)) thislearning setting has not yet really reached classes of German universities This may bedue to the relatively high (personnel) efforts for content and technical support But themore important reason is likely to be seen in the difficulty of integrating the MOOCsrsquoapproaches of openness in the fixed regulations of higher education programs andthe prevailing culture of instructor-centered teaching Appropriate pilot projects areneeded to overcome these difficulties and optimally exploit the potentials of this for-mat for broad academic contexts

Mediating networked learning skills should be especially a teaching objective for uni-versities However transferring open approaches of MOOCs to the context of highereducation comes along with some questions and challenges

1 How can MOOCs be integrated in course curriculums Which issues or subjectsare suitable for this at all

2 How can learning outcomes in MOOCs be measured and evaluated Is this actu-ally possible at all for connectivist settings

5

3 Finally this raises the question of needed compromises To what extent can theconcept of MOOCs be modified so that its basic concepts remain but also respectsspecifics of the higher education contexts

4 The SOOC13

Within the project lsquoSaxon Open Online Course (SOOC)rsquo3 we want to find answersto exactly these questions of institutional integration and overall practicability by con-ducting a cMOOC in the frame of higher education Of course there have been al-ready cMOOCs within the higher education context ndash especially most of the alreadynamed German examples always had a strong connection to universities Howeverwithin these MOOCs students were only a small fraction of the participants e g Bre-mer (2012) or the MOOC did only take place as long opportunity to a regular classlecture (e g ocwl114)

The SOOC13 is designed as a regular but nearly exclusively online university courseinstead and therefore addresses primarily students As mentioned before this raisessome special questions and challenges due to the open didactic approach and the insti-tutional framework The following subsections present the main ideas of our MOOCconcept along the three aspects (a) institutional reference (b) performance review and(c) structure and thereby focus on the specifics of our course and the most critical points

41 Institutional reference connecting different universities different

The SOOC is a joint-project of three German universities the Technical University Dres-den the Chemnitz University of Technology and the University of Siegen Here stu-dents of selected degree programs have the possibility to achieve Credit Points (CPs)for their course-activities This is a central issue in order to be perceived as regularuniversity course from the perspective of students ndash but not usual for MOOCS The2013 Horizon Report even states that lsquoMOOCs are increasingly seen as a very intrigu-ing alternative to credit-based instructionsrsquo (see (Johnson Adams Becker Cumminset al 2013 p 7)) To make this offer in advance of the course much coordination workwith the examination offices of the different universities had to be done however Nowfinally the scale of achievable CPs range from 15 to 4 ndash depending on university anddegree program It goes without saying that in accordance with these different creditpoints different performance requirements had to be defined as well (see subsection 42and subsection 43)

Since the SOOC is open to students of three different universities and seven differentfaculties the group of participants consists of an interesting interdisciplinary mixture

3The Saxon Open Online Course (SOOC) is part of a program called lsquoTeaching practice in transferrsquo(Lehrpraxis im Transfer LiT) which is located at the Higher Educational Centre of the Free State Sax-ony (Hochschuldidaktisches Zentrum Sachsen HDS) and funded by the German Federal Ministry ofEducation and Research The LiT-program aims to promote innovative and inter-university teaching-project

4httpocwl11wissensdialogede (Retrieved 2013-05-16)

6

Based on this new understanding of knowledge and learning George Siemens and hisCanadian colleague Stephen Downes developed the first Massive Open Online Coursetitled ldquoConnectivism and Connective Knowledgerdquo in 2008 for which over 2200 partici-pants had registered The logical conclusion of connectivist courses set in the traditionof CCK08 is not to give priority to the delivered content but to the development ofnetworking skills (cf (Robes 2012)) In the summer of 2011 the first Germanspeak-ing Open Online course on the future of learning with 900 registered participants tookplace (OPCO11) (Bremer 2012) More German-speaking MOOCs joined in and therewas even a MOOC-Maker-Course (MMC13) that can be seen as a Meta MOOC e g aMOOC on issues related to the implementation of MOOCs

Setting up a MOOC certain basic elements have proven helpful (Robes 2012) Anagenda names a weekly topic and provides reading recommendations and suggestionsfor activities or tasks Live events i e online presentations of various speakers providefurther input and are often the highlight of a MOOC week Any further activities aredriven decentralized by learners Participants e g discuss the actual topic in postson their own blogs communicate on Twitter or share interesting links In order toallocate the contributions of the MOOC those are tagged with a particular keywordor Hashtag (e g cck08 or opco11 or mmc13) so that other participants can followthem ndash but they do not need to do that Each learner is responsible for its own learningprocess and thus also for its personal learning success Roles of teachers and learnersare translucent by the active contributions of the participants rsquoNormalrsquo participantsbecome knowledge providers and the initiators of the MOOCs are not tied to the roleof the teacher which is why the name of the ldquohostrdquo is becoming increasingly popular

3 Special Features of MOOCs in Universities

Todayrsquos universities face the challenge not only to prepare their students in technicalterms for their future professional activities but more than ever also to convey so-cial methodological and personality-related competencies The 2012 Horizon Reportin Higher Education emphasizes increasingly decentralized flexible and collaborativeworking environments and the need for new education paradigms and well-suitedlearning models in direction of challenge-based and active learning as ldquokey trendsrdquowhich will change the higher education landscape sustainably during the next years(see Johnson Adams Becker and Cummins (2012 pp 4 sq)) Of course all of thesetrends are strongly connected with new technologies as social media or mobile devicesAccordingly especially the ability to initiate organize and structure self-directed andself-responsible learning processes beyond formal institutional settings is becomingmore and more essential To train this and to get to know their own learning behaviourlearners primarily must have the opportunity to gain experiences in informal learningcontexts In classical curricula unfortunately therersquos little to no space for such learningexperiences

E- and blended-learning approaches already make an important contribution to breakup and expand the rigid framework of classroom teaching to the open space of an indi-

4

vidual learner-driven design of learning processes in online phases At the same timewe can observe that the interactive and communicative possibilities of learning man-agement systems (LMS) often are not used by students in the desired manner Thusthe learning platform usually acts solely as kind of storage for courserelated materialswhile communication and cooperation take part via other channels like social networksites (eg Facebook) An important reason for this is certainly to be seen in the factthat the World Wide Web already provides a variety of practical tools which are usedanyway by todayrsquos students for various purposes (see Kerres (2006 pp 5 sqq)) In thisrespect the phenomenon of the learning platform as an ldquoisland in the internetrdquo (Kerres(ibid p 5)) counteracts the potential of Web 20 adversely since the actual learningprocesses occur usually outside of the platform so that the collective of students insidethe course benefit only indirectly

But this explanation describes only one part of the problem In addition many stu-dents act and understand themselves as recipients of well-prepared knowledge (SchaarschmidtKoumlhler and Dietsch 2012) This rsquoconsumer attitudersquo partially also conveyed by theBologna reform counteracts the development of the required selflearning skills in thecontext of universities and later working environments

Today these needs are regarded for all academic disciplines Therefore innovativeteaching-learning scenarios that are adapted to the current life and future work andthat further enhance studentsrsquo learning and information skills need to be developed ndashespecially supported by Web 20 technologies The challenge however in addition tothe transfer of theoretical knowledge on new concepts of networked learning is pro-viding spaces for the practical experiments and gathering personal experiences Forthis the concept of an Open Online Course (OOC) offers the perfect setting to enableself-organized networked learning experiences in an open environment initiated andsupported by instructors

However beyond few lighthouse projects (e g the OPCO11 see Bremer (2012)) thislearning setting has not yet really reached classes of German universities This may bedue to the relatively high (personnel) efforts for content and technical support But themore important reason is likely to be seen in the difficulty of integrating the MOOCsrsquoapproaches of openness in the fixed regulations of higher education programs andthe prevailing culture of instructor-centered teaching Appropriate pilot projects areneeded to overcome these difficulties and optimally exploit the potentials of this for-mat for broad academic contexts

Mediating networked learning skills should be especially a teaching objective for uni-versities However transferring open approaches of MOOCs to the context of highereducation comes along with some questions and challenges

1 How can MOOCs be integrated in course curriculums Which issues or subjectsare suitable for this at all

2 How can learning outcomes in MOOCs be measured and evaluated Is this actu-ally possible at all for connectivist settings

5

3 Finally this raises the question of needed compromises To what extent can theconcept of MOOCs be modified so that its basic concepts remain but also respectsspecifics of the higher education contexts

4 The SOOC13

Within the project lsquoSaxon Open Online Course (SOOC)rsquo3 we want to find answersto exactly these questions of institutional integration and overall practicability by con-ducting a cMOOC in the frame of higher education Of course there have been al-ready cMOOCs within the higher education context ndash especially most of the alreadynamed German examples always had a strong connection to universities Howeverwithin these MOOCs students were only a small fraction of the participants e g Bre-mer (2012) or the MOOC did only take place as long opportunity to a regular classlecture (e g ocwl114)

The SOOC13 is designed as a regular but nearly exclusively online university courseinstead and therefore addresses primarily students As mentioned before this raisessome special questions and challenges due to the open didactic approach and the insti-tutional framework The following subsections present the main ideas of our MOOCconcept along the three aspects (a) institutional reference (b) performance review and(c) structure and thereby focus on the specifics of our course and the most critical points

41 Institutional reference connecting different universities different

The SOOC is a joint-project of three German universities the Technical University Dres-den the Chemnitz University of Technology and the University of Siegen Here stu-dents of selected degree programs have the possibility to achieve Credit Points (CPs)for their course-activities This is a central issue in order to be perceived as regularuniversity course from the perspective of students ndash but not usual for MOOCS The2013 Horizon Report even states that lsquoMOOCs are increasingly seen as a very intrigu-ing alternative to credit-based instructionsrsquo (see (Johnson Adams Becker Cumminset al 2013 p 7)) To make this offer in advance of the course much coordination workwith the examination offices of the different universities had to be done however Nowfinally the scale of achievable CPs range from 15 to 4 ndash depending on university anddegree program It goes without saying that in accordance with these different creditpoints different performance requirements had to be defined as well (see subsection 42and subsection 43)

Since the SOOC is open to students of three different universities and seven differentfaculties the group of participants consists of an interesting interdisciplinary mixture

3The Saxon Open Online Course (SOOC) is part of a program called lsquoTeaching practice in transferrsquo(Lehrpraxis im Transfer LiT) which is located at the Higher Educational Centre of the Free State Sax-ony (Hochschuldidaktisches Zentrum Sachsen HDS) and funded by the German Federal Ministry ofEducation and Research The LiT-program aims to promote innovative and inter-university teaching-project

4httpocwl11wissensdialogede (Retrieved 2013-05-16)

6

vidual learner-driven design of learning processes in online phases At the same timewe can observe that the interactive and communicative possibilities of learning man-agement systems (LMS) often are not used by students in the desired manner Thusthe learning platform usually acts solely as kind of storage for courserelated materialswhile communication and cooperation take part via other channels like social networksites (eg Facebook) An important reason for this is certainly to be seen in the factthat the World Wide Web already provides a variety of practical tools which are usedanyway by todayrsquos students for various purposes (see Kerres (2006 pp 5 sqq)) In thisrespect the phenomenon of the learning platform as an ldquoisland in the internetrdquo (Kerres(ibid p 5)) counteracts the potential of Web 20 adversely since the actual learningprocesses occur usually outside of the platform so that the collective of students insidethe course benefit only indirectly

But this explanation describes only one part of the problem In addition many stu-dents act and understand themselves as recipients of well-prepared knowledge (SchaarschmidtKoumlhler and Dietsch 2012) This rsquoconsumer attitudersquo partially also conveyed by theBologna reform counteracts the development of the required selflearning skills in thecontext of universities and later working environments

Today these needs are regarded for all academic disciplines Therefore innovativeteaching-learning scenarios that are adapted to the current life and future work andthat further enhance studentsrsquo learning and information skills need to be developed ndashespecially supported by Web 20 technologies The challenge however in addition tothe transfer of theoretical knowledge on new concepts of networked learning is pro-viding spaces for the practical experiments and gathering personal experiences Forthis the concept of an Open Online Course (OOC) offers the perfect setting to enableself-organized networked learning experiences in an open environment initiated andsupported by instructors

However beyond few lighthouse projects (e g the OPCO11 see Bremer (2012)) thislearning setting has not yet really reached classes of German universities This may bedue to the relatively high (personnel) efforts for content and technical support But themore important reason is likely to be seen in the difficulty of integrating the MOOCsrsquoapproaches of openness in the fixed regulations of higher education programs andthe prevailing culture of instructor-centered teaching Appropriate pilot projects areneeded to overcome these difficulties and optimally exploit the potentials of this for-mat for broad academic contexts

Mediating networked learning skills should be especially a teaching objective for uni-versities However transferring open approaches of MOOCs to the context of highereducation comes along with some questions and challenges

1 How can MOOCs be integrated in course curriculums Which issues or subjectsare suitable for this at all

2 How can learning outcomes in MOOCs be measured and evaluated Is this actu-ally possible at all for connectivist settings

5

3 Finally this raises the question of needed compromises To what extent can theconcept of MOOCs be modified so that its basic concepts remain but also respectsspecifics of the higher education contexts

4 The SOOC13

Within the project lsquoSaxon Open Online Course (SOOC)rsquo3 we want to find answersto exactly these questions of institutional integration and overall practicability by con-ducting a cMOOC in the frame of higher education Of course there have been al-ready cMOOCs within the higher education context ndash especially most of the alreadynamed German examples always had a strong connection to universities Howeverwithin these MOOCs students were only a small fraction of the participants e g Bre-mer (2012) or the MOOC did only take place as long opportunity to a regular classlecture (e g ocwl114)

The SOOC13 is designed as a regular but nearly exclusively online university courseinstead and therefore addresses primarily students As mentioned before this raisessome special questions and challenges due to the open didactic approach and the insti-tutional framework The following subsections present the main ideas of our MOOCconcept along the three aspects (a) institutional reference (b) performance review and(c) structure and thereby focus on the specifics of our course and the most critical points

41 Institutional reference connecting different universities different

The SOOC is a joint-project of three German universities the Technical University Dres-den the Chemnitz University of Technology and the University of Siegen Here stu-dents of selected degree programs have the possibility to achieve Credit Points (CPs)for their course-activities This is a central issue in order to be perceived as regularuniversity course from the perspective of students ndash but not usual for MOOCS The2013 Horizon Report even states that lsquoMOOCs are increasingly seen as a very intrigu-ing alternative to credit-based instructionsrsquo (see (Johnson Adams Becker Cumminset al 2013 p 7)) To make this offer in advance of the course much coordination workwith the examination offices of the different universities had to be done however Nowfinally the scale of achievable CPs range from 15 to 4 ndash depending on university anddegree program It goes without saying that in accordance with these different creditpoints different performance requirements had to be defined as well (see subsection 42and subsection 43)

Since the SOOC is open to students of three different universities and seven differentfaculties the group of participants consists of an interesting interdisciplinary mixture

3The Saxon Open Online Course (SOOC) is part of a program called lsquoTeaching practice in transferrsquo(Lehrpraxis im Transfer LiT) which is located at the Higher Educational Centre of the Free State Sax-ony (Hochschuldidaktisches Zentrum Sachsen HDS) and funded by the German Federal Ministry ofEducation and Research The LiT-program aims to promote innovative and inter-university teaching-project

4httpocwl11wissensdialogede (Retrieved 2013-05-16)

6

3 Finally this raises the question of needed compromises To what extent can theconcept of MOOCs be modified so that its basic concepts remain but also respectsspecifics of the higher education contexts

4 The SOOC13

Within the project lsquoSaxon Open Online Course (SOOC)rsquo3 we want to find answersto exactly these questions of institutional integration and overall practicability by con-ducting a cMOOC in the frame of higher education Of course there have been al-ready cMOOCs within the higher education context ndash especially most of the alreadynamed German examples always had a strong connection to universities Howeverwithin these MOOCs students were only a small fraction of the participants e g Bre-mer (2012) or the MOOC did only take place as long opportunity to a regular classlecture (e g ocwl114)

The SOOC13 is designed as a regular but nearly exclusively online university courseinstead and therefore addresses primarily students As mentioned before this raisessome special questions and challenges due to the open didactic approach and the insti-tutional framework The following subsections present the main ideas of our MOOCconcept along the three aspects (a) institutional reference (b) performance review and(c) structure and thereby focus on the specifics of our course and the most critical points

41 Institutional reference connecting different universities different

The SOOC is a joint-project of three German universities the Technical University Dres-den the Chemnitz University of Technology and the University of Siegen Here stu-dents of selected degree programs have the possibility to achieve Credit Points (CPs)for their course-activities This is a central issue in order to be perceived as regularuniversity course from the perspective of students ndash but not usual for MOOCS The2013 Horizon Report even states that lsquoMOOCs are increasingly seen as a very intrigu-ing alternative to credit-based instructionsrsquo (see (Johnson Adams Becker Cumminset al 2013 p 7)) To make this offer in advance of the course much coordination workwith the examination offices of the different universities had to be done however Nowfinally the scale of achievable CPs range from 15 to 4 ndash depending on university anddegree program It goes without saying that in accordance with these different creditpoints different performance requirements had to be defined as well (see subsection 42and subsection 43)

Since the SOOC is open to students of three different universities and seven differentfaculties the group of participants consists of an interesting interdisciplinary mixture

3The Saxon Open Online Course (SOOC) is part of a program called lsquoTeaching practice in transferrsquo(Lehrpraxis im Transfer LiT) which is located at the Higher Educational Centre of the Free State Sax-ony (Hochschuldidaktisches Zentrum Sachsen HDS) and funded by the German Federal Ministry ofEducation and Research The LiT-program aims to promote innovative and inter-university teaching-project

4httpocwl11wissensdialogede (Retrieved 2013-05-16)

6

of educational sciences economics communication sciences linguistics as well as com-puter science related subjects This effect is increased by participants coming from out-side the organizing universities ndash as the SOOC is of course open to everyone beyondany kind of educational institution As we asked participants within the registrationform to tell us their current profession we can see a variety of researchers trainersstudents of other universities or even unemployed people We recognize participantsmainly from Germany but also from Austria and Suisse All together we had 223 reg-istrations at the start of the SOOC13

Moreover as the topic of the SOOC13 is lsquoLearning 20 Individual Learning andKnowledge Management with Social Mediarsquo5 we wanted not only to invite studentsand other interested people to participate but also and explicitly university teachersand lecturers Thatrsquos why the SOOC is also part of the current program of advancedtrainings in university didactics in the German Federal States of Saxony (DresdenChemnitz) and North Rhine-Westphalia (Siegen) Participants here are to obtain a spe-cial certificate

Besides all these formal questions due to the diversity of the group of participantsour expectations are on an intensified thematic exchange Still itrsquos not usual within ourhigher educational system that students and teachers come together to learn togetherand discuss questions regarding the future of learning ndash although undoubtedly bothsides can benefit from this Doing this additionally in an interdisciplinary context seemsto be twice fruitful Last but not least such a complex and differentiated network oflearners corresponds to the idea of connectivism and MOOCs in an extra special way

42 Performance review the e-portfolio approach

Whereas former cMOOCs were often part of informal education with personal learn-ing objectives the higher education framework leads to questions of appropriate as-sessments in a MOOC Since the so called Bologna reform achievements are accreditedwith Credit Points (CPs) The amount of CPs needed by the students is determinedby their curriculum and differs from subject to subject To enable accreditation for sev-eral modules we arranged a collection of activities and tasks That step was not trivialas the approach of connectivist MOOCs seems incompatible to summative question-naires formal exams or even multiple-choice tests Rather the expected activities andtasks on the one hand should be strongly connected with the schedule and structureof the course itself Within the SOOC13 this is implemented by expecting at least onelonger textual or medial contribution in each of the four thematic sections which is ex-pected from each participant wishing to achieve CPs or obtain a certificate Moreoverthere are several smaller activities and tasks the learners are asked to finish during thecourse With regard to the overall course theme ldquoLearning 20rdquo some of these rsquoexercisesrsquospecifically encourage self-reflection

5This course is segregated into four sections of two weeks length each (1) Learning 20 Theories andapproaches (2) Tools for individual learning and knowledge management (3) Requirements and con-ditions by legally politically personally and (4) Learning 20 in organizations The future of educationand training

7

As learners should handle all these smaller activities and tasks within their own so-cial media channel (we recommend a personal blog) they stepwise create a personalcollection of thematic artifacts These artifacts are important for the single learner itselfas well as for all the other participants of the course who are invited to read and com-ment the collected artifacts Exactly these artifacts also form the basis of the neededperformance review The idea behind this procedure is the approach of eportfolio

The participants are able to manage their material their communication and feed-back activities as well as their own learning products with the e-portfolio Through thevisible collection of artifacts and the reflection about their learning process we can as-sess a holistic learning progress Serge Ravet characterizes the potential of e-portfoliosand states that ldquoePortfolios will become essential tools for personal development plan-ning (PDP) managing continuing professional development (CPD) and gaining accred-itation for prior learning (APL)rdquo (Ravet 2008) Thus the function of an e-portfolio asa central assessment tool is twofold it serves as learning method as well as content ofthe course

When registering for the course participants are asked to communicate the mediachannels through which they want to participate at SOOC13 On the lowest level thiscan happen via comments on the course blog that builds up a self-hosted Wordpressinstallation However we recommended using twitter and a blog Additionally thesetools can be used and elaborated further after the course finished By using the WPRSS Aggregator plugin all weblogs registered by the participants are automaticallychecked every two hours for new entries tagged with ldquosooc13rdquo These posts are listedin the central aggregation site on the course blog then Tweets tagged with sooc13and are presented in a Twitter widget on the same site The aggregation of participantsand organizers posts and tweets is an important means to establish monitoring andoverview activities that are distributed on the internet and otherwise potentially hardto find Furthermore the aggregation ensures that contributions of active participantscan be found and thus be read receive acknowledgement and reactions

The overall supervision of the required performance tasks is practically done by fourresearch assistants To manage the flood of information we also use the former de-scribed variety of different aggregation tools To facilitate the review process regardingthose students that want to get CPs for the SOOC we extended the blog aggregationplugin functionality so that the RSS-Feed can be configured individually By this wayour research assistants collect those assessment-crucial contributions using a separateRSS-Feed

43 Structure between openness and standards

Not only with the e-portfolios but during the whole course the relationship of opennessand institutional regulation was is and will be discussed especially by hosts Untilwhich extend the cMOOC concept can be adapted to higher education without losingthe rsquoopenrsquo aspects Therefore the aim of the SOOC is to find ways to preserve theopenness and bring it into line with institutional requirements

8

As learners should handle all these smaller activities and tasks within their own so-cial media channel (we recommend a personal blog) they stepwise create a personalcollection of thematic artifacts These artifacts are important for the single learner itselfas well as for all the other participants of the course who are invited to read and com-ment the collected artifacts Exactly these artifacts also form the basis of the neededperformance review The idea behind this procedure is the approach of eportfolio

The participants are able to manage their material their communication and feed-back activities as well as their own learning products with the e-portfolio Through thevisible collection of artifacts and the reflection about their learning process we can as-sess a holistic learning progress Serge Ravet characterizes the potential of e-portfoliosand states that ldquoePortfolios will become essential tools for personal development plan-ning (PDP) managing continuing professional development (CPD) and gaining accred-itation for prior learning (APL)rdquo (Ravet 2008) Thus the function of an e-portfolio asa central assessment tool is twofold it serves as learning method as well as content ofthe course

When registering for the course participants are asked to communicate the mediachannels through which they want to participate at SOOC13 On the lowest level thiscan happen via comments on the course blog that builds up a self-hosted Wordpressinstallation However we recommended using twitter and a blog Additionally thesetools can be used and elaborated further after the course finished By using the WPRSS Aggregator plugin all weblogs registered by the participants are automaticallychecked every two hours for new entries tagged with ldquosooc13rdquo These posts are listedin the central aggregation site on the course blog then Tweets tagged with sooc13and are presented in a Twitter widget on the same site The aggregation of participantsand organizers posts and tweets is an important means to establish monitoring andoverview activities that are distributed on the internet and otherwise potentially hardto find Furthermore the aggregation ensures that contributions of active participantscan be found and thus be read receive acknowledgement and reactions

The overall supervision of the required performance tasks is practically done by fourresearch assistants To manage the flood of information we also use the former de-scribed variety of different aggregation tools To facilitate the review process regardingthose students that want to get CPs for the SOOC we extended the blog aggregationplugin functionality so that the RSS-Feed can be configured individually By this wayour research assistants collect those assessment-crucial contributions using a separateRSS-Feed

43 Structure between openness and standards

Not only with the e-portfolios but during the whole course the relationship of opennessand institutional regulation was is and will be discussed especially by hosts Untilwhich extend the cMOOC concept can be adapted to higher education without losingthe rsquoopenrsquo aspects Therefore the aim of the SOOC is to find ways to preserve theopenness and bring it into line with institutional requirements

8

To prepare students for this new learning scenario we held two workshops in classHere we introduced the cMOOC concept and our ideas for the SOOC And we alsodiscussed possible challenges and problems of an online course with a potentially highnumber of participants Using new tools getting much input having free choices oflearning options reading interesting contributions and links posted by other partici-pants ndash students have to overcome with a flood of information in a MOOC With thein class workshops we tried to raise awareness that this is a completely other conceptand that information overload may be a part of it

5 The SOOC13 in Numbers First Results of an Online Survey

In summer term 2013 the SOOC13 is a kind of a pilot scheme for further activitiesconcerning MOOCs and alternative teaching and learning models in higher educationcontext Therefore an intensive formative evaluation program is planned In detailthe evaluation design will consist of standardized questionnaires at several times of thecourse as well as of content analysis of the posts and articles of the participants

51 Method

To learn more about the demographic composition of our participants and to evalu-ate their previous experiences with social media tools as well as to get to know theirexpectations concerning the course topic we conducted an online survey amongst allregistered participants in advance of the course

This online survey was created using the survey software Unipark It consisted ofthree parts (1) demographics (2) usage of Social Media and other online tools (3) pre-vious knowledge and interests on MOOCs and Learning 20 generally and the SOOC13-topics in particular

Overall 233 persons were invited via a personalized e-mail With a total of 99 finishedquestionnaires we received a response rate of 425 On average participants needed12 minutes for answering the 11 resp 13 questions of the survey

52 Empirical findings

521 Demographic structure

Most of the survey participants are female (59) That fits with the typical allocationbetween sexes in the economics social and educational sciences which are the mostrepresented disciplines in the survey

50 of the survey participants are people with a university-entrance Diploma calledAbitur Some are academics with a diploma degree (11) bachelor (9) MagisterAtrium (8) State examination (7) master (6) and 6 already finished their Ph D

Moreover itrsquos interesting to see that about half of the survey participants are students(52) while also about half are already in the professional life (49) The majority of thenon-student participants are working in higher education (university staff 53) 17

9

are self-employed another 15 are working in the sector of further education and 9in the private sector

522 Usage of social media and other online tools

Within two workshops and online tutorials to prepare students for the SOOC13 partic-ipation an instruction in handling some basic Web 20 tools needed for the course i eweblogs twitter and the online conference system Adobe Connect where given Be-fore this introduction they were asked to indicate their actual usage habits with theseapplications and other online tools (see Figure 1)

Most popular among all surveyed is reading wikis (98) Therersquos almost no onenot using them Nevertheless we suppose that most people answering that questionwith rsquoyesrsquo were thinking of the Wikipedia as the most famous wiki Additionally asour sample consists of many students watching video clips on YouTube or other videocommunity platforms (92) the use of learning management systems (86) as well asthe use of private social networking sites like Facebook (83) and tools for videocon-ferencing like Skype (82) are popular

Still popular among the SOOC-participants are newsgroups (77) content sharingand cloud services (78) the reading of weblogs (72) as well as mailing lists (59)and the reading of microblogs (56) All of these tools are used by more than half ofthe respondents

Although the results in usage especially for social networking sites and microblogsdiffer significantly from those in studies with other target groups (e g scientists seePscheida and Koumlhler (2013) and Pscheida Lorenz et al (2013)) therersquos no real differ-ence in the observation that many people use even typical social media tools in a ratherpassive way That phenomenon of lurking is well known and proved by various stud-ies While only some people produce the content therersquos an even bigger group of thosewho absorb it c f (Horowitz 2006 Kahnwald 2009 Redecker 2009)

Moreover itrsquos interesting to see that at least 17 of the surveyed already use per-sonalized dashboard platforms while only 4 of the participants are using e-portfolioplatforms for teaching learning or the personal knowledge management So it can beimplied that therersquos only little experience with that method we are to use for formativeassessment in the SOOC

Further we asked participants in which way i e through which channels they planto participate in the SOOC (see Figure 2) The majority (77) wants to read and com-ment the course page while half of the participants make themselves ready to read andcomment other blogs (48) or read tweets (55)

Additional 24 plan to write an own blog 32 are looking forward to tweet activelyNevertheless one quarter plans no active participation Next to the lurking aspect thiscan be explained with the generally high interest in MOOCs Some participants mightonly register to have a look at our realization of the SOOC

10

Figure 1 Figure 1 ldquoDo you use the following social media applications and online-based toolsrdquo n=99

Figure 2 Figure 2 ldquoThrough which channels do you plan to participate in the SOOCrdquon=99

11

Figure 3 Figure 3 ldquoHow interesting do you regard the four thematic sections of theSOOCrdquo n=96 (Section I) 97 (Section II) 97 (Section III) 98 (Section IV)

523 Previous knowledge and interest

The third step was to ask the participants whether they have some previous experi-ences with elearning 20 and the usage of social media applications in learning andknowledge management contexts and how they would describe it

Only 10 of the participants characterize their prior knowledge as extensive 37say that they have no prior knowledge at all while the majority of 53 indicate to haveat least some prior knowledge in e-learning 20 and social media usage

With regard to the preparing in class workshops the self-assessment in this contextmight be too strict Most participants are already signed up at social networks and evenhave an own weblog Nevertheless they mentioned not to use them actively or not inlearning and knowledge management contexts

As a last question we asked the participants on their preferred topics in SOOC13The most popular section is obviously the section about learning and knowledge man-agement But also the future of education and training seems to be interesting for theparticipants Section 3 which will make copyright net politics and personal conditionsa subject of discussion is apparently less interesting for the participants

6 Conclusion

One can say that the Saxon Open Online Course is our contribution to the ldquoyear of theMOOCrdquo (Pappano 2012) motivated by first lighthouse projects of this promising newlearning setting and driven by appropriate funding options we started the SOOC aslearning and teaching experiment

At the current state of the project (the workshops are over and the online course isrunning one week now) we are excited to see how participants will deal with these

12

new learning setting between openness and institutional assessment The e-portfolioswill make parts of their learning process visible just in time and enable direct feedbackof other participants But will they really reflect their learning process or just writesomething down to achieve CPs Will there be discussions among participants or justposts without comments and feedback cf Schulmeister (2010) To which extend dothey need input feedback and summaries by hosts or is it sufficient to just providea topical and organizational framework And finally Are MOOCs suitable learningsettings for higher education and are the experiences of the SOOC applicable for furthercMOOCs

First implications can be adapted in a second run of the SOOC planned for the winterterm 201314

Literaturverzeichnis

Bremer Claudia (2012) ldquoNew format for online courses the open course Future ofLearningrdquo In Proceedings of the eLearning Baltics eLBa 2012 Rostock Germany (citon pp 4 sqq)

Hill Phil (2012) ldquoOnline Educational Delivery Models A Descriptive Viewrdquo In ED-UCAUSE Review NovemverDNovemberDecember pp 85ndash97 URL httpwww educause edu ero article online - educational - delivery - models -descriptive-view (cit on p 2)

Horowitz Bradley (2006) Creators Synthesizers and Consumers URL httpblogelatablecom200602creators-synthesizers-and-consumershtml (cit onp 10)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker and M Cummins (2012) The NMC HorizonReport 2012 Higher Education Edition Tech rep Austin Texas The New MediaConsortium URL httpwwwnmcorgpublicationshorizon-report-2012-higher-ed-edition (cit on p 4)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker M Cummins V Estrada A Freeman andHolly Ludgate (2013) NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition Techrep Austin Texas New Media Consortium URL httpwwwnmcorgnewshorizon-report-2013-higher-ed-edition-here (cit on pp 1 sq 6)

Kahnwald Nina (2009) ldquoInformal Learning in Virtual Communities Individual Prac-tice between Information Retrieval Observation and Participationrdquo In Proceedingsof the 11th General Online Research Conference GOR 09 Ed by M Welker Wien (citon p 10)

Kerres Michael (2006) ldquoPotenziale von Web 20 nutzenrdquo In Handbuch E-LearningExpertenwissen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis - Strategien Instrumente Fallstudien Ed

13

are self-employed another 15 are working in the sector of further education and 9in the private sector

522 Usage of social media and other online tools

Within two workshops and online tutorials to prepare students for the SOOC13 partic-ipation an instruction in handling some basic Web 20 tools needed for the course i eweblogs twitter and the online conference system Adobe Connect where given Be-fore this introduction they were asked to indicate their actual usage habits with theseapplications and other online tools (see Figure 1)

Most popular among all surveyed is reading wikis (98) Therersquos almost no onenot using them Nevertheless we suppose that most people answering that questionwith rsquoyesrsquo were thinking of the Wikipedia as the most famous wiki Additionally asour sample consists of many students watching video clips on YouTube or other videocommunity platforms (92) the use of learning management systems (86) as well asthe use of private social networking sites like Facebook (83) and tools for videocon-ferencing like Skype (82) are popular

Still popular among the SOOC-participants are newsgroups (77) content sharingand cloud services (78) the reading of weblogs (72) as well as mailing lists (59)and the reading of microblogs (56) All of these tools are used by more than half ofthe respondents

Although the results in usage especially for social networking sites and microblogsdiffer significantly from those in studies with other target groups (e g scientists seePscheida and Koumlhler (2013) and Pscheida Lorenz et al (2013)) therersquos no real differ-ence in the observation that many people use even typical social media tools in a ratherpassive way That phenomenon of lurking is well known and proved by various stud-ies While only some people produce the content therersquos an even bigger group of thosewho absorb it c f (Horowitz 2006 Kahnwald 2009 Redecker 2009)

Moreover itrsquos interesting to see that at least 17 of the surveyed already use per-sonalized dashboard platforms while only 4 of the participants are using e-portfolioplatforms for teaching learning or the personal knowledge management So it can beimplied that therersquos only little experience with that method we are to use for formativeassessment in the SOOC

Further we asked participants in which way i e through which channels they planto participate in the SOOC (see Figure 2) The majority (77) wants to read and com-ment the course page while half of the participants make themselves ready to read andcomment other blogs (48) or read tweets (55)

Additional 24 plan to write an own blog 32 are looking forward to tweet activelyNevertheless one quarter plans no active participation Next to the lurking aspect thiscan be explained with the generally high interest in MOOCs Some participants mightonly register to have a look at our realization of the SOOC

10

Figure 1 Figure 1 ldquoDo you use the following social media applications and online-based toolsrdquo n=99

Figure 2 Figure 2 ldquoThrough which channels do you plan to participate in the SOOCrdquon=99

11

Figure 3 Figure 3 ldquoHow interesting do you regard the four thematic sections of theSOOCrdquo n=96 (Section I) 97 (Section II) 97 (Section III) 98 (Section IV)

523 Previous knowledge and interest

The third step was to ask the participants whether they have some previous experi-ences with elearning 20 and the usage of social media applications in learning andknowledge management contexts and how they would describe it

Only 10 of the participants characterize their prior knowledge as extensive 37say that they have no prior knowledge at all while the majority of 53 indicate to haveat least some prior knowledge in e-learning 20 and social media usage

With regard to the preparing in class workshops the self-assessment in this contextmight be too strict Most participants are already signed up at social networks and evenhave an own weblog Nevertheless they mentioned not to use them actively or not inlearning and knowledge management contexts

As a last question we asked the participants on their preferred topics in SOOC13The most popular section is obviously the section about learning and knowledge man-agement But also the future of education and training seems to be interesting for theparticipants Section 3 which will make copyright net politics and personal conditionsa subject of discussion is apparently less interesting for the participants

6 Conclusion

One can say that the Saxon Open Online Course is our contribution to the ldquoyear of theMOOCrdquo (Pappano 2012) motivated by first lighthouse projects of this promising newlearning setting and driven by appropriate funding options we started the SOOC aslearning and teaching experiment

At the current state of the project (the workshops are over and the online course isrunning one week now) we are excited to see how participants will deal with these

12

new learning setting between openness and institutional assessment The e-portfolioswill make parts of their learning process visible just in time and enable direct feedbackof other participants But will they really reflect their learning process or just writesomething down to achieve CPs Will there be discussions among participants or justposts without comments and feedback cf Schulmeister (2010) To which extend dothey need input feedback and summaries by hosts or is it sufficient to just providea topical and organizational framework And finally Are MOOCs suitable learningsettings for higher education and are the experiences of the SOOC applicable for furthercMOOCs

First implications can be adapted in a second run of the SOOC planned for the winterterm 201314

Literaturverzeichnis

Bremer Claudia (2012) ldquoNew format for online courses the open course Future ofLearningrdquo In Proceedings of the eLearning Baltics eLBa 2012 Rostock Germany (citon pp 4 sqq)

Hill Phil (2012) ldquoOnline Educational Delivery Models A Descriptive Viewrdquo In ED-UCAUSE Review NovemverDNovemberDecember pp 85ndash97 URL httpwww educause edu ero article online - educational - delivery - models -descriptive-view (cit on p 2)

Horowitz Bradley (2006) Creators Synthesizers and Consumers URL httpblogelatablecom200602creators-synthesizers-and-consumershtml (cit onp 10)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker and M Cummins (2012) The NMC HorizonReport 2012 Higher Education Edition Tech rep Austin Texas The New MediaConsortium URL httpwwwnmcorgpublicationshorizon-report-2012-higher-ed-edition (cit on p 4)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker M Cummins V Estrada A Freeman andHolly Ludgate (2013) NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition Techrep Austin Texas New Media Consortium URL httpwwwnmcorgnewshorizon-report-2013-higher-ed-edition-here (cit on pp 1 sq 6)

Kahnwald Nina (2009) ldquoInformal Learning in Virtual Communities Individual Prac-tice between Information Retrieval Observation and Participationrdquo In Proceedingsof the 11th General Online Research Conference GOR 09 Ed by M Welker Wien (citon p 10)

Kerres Michael (2006) ldquoPotenziale von Web 20 nutzenrdquo In Handbuch E-LearningExpertenwissen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis - Strategien Instrumente Fallstudien Ed

13

Figure 1 Figure 1 ldquoDo you use the following social media applications and online-based toolsrdquo n=99

Figure 2 Figure 2 ldquoThrough which channels do you plan to participate in the SOOCrdquon=99

11

Figure 3 Figure 3 ldquoHow interesting do you regard the four thematic sections of theSOOCrdquo n=96 (Section I) 97 (Section II) 97 (Section III) 98 (Section IV)

523 Previous knowledge and interest

The third step was to ask the participants whether they have some previous experi-ences with elearning 20 and the usage of social media applications in learning andknowledge management contexts and how they would describe it

Only 10 of the participants characterize their prior knowledge as extensive 37say that they have no prior knowledge at all while the majority of 53 indicate to haveat least some prior knowledge in e-learning 20 and social media usage

With regard to the preparing in class workshops the self-assessment in this contextmight be too strict Most participants are already signed up at social networks and evenhave an own weblog Nevertheless they mentioned not to use them actively or not inlearning and knowledge management contexts

As a last question we asked the participants on their preferred topics in SOOC13The most popular section is obviously the section about learning and knowledge man-agement But also the future of education and training seems to be interesting for theparticipants Section 3 which will make copyright net politics and personal conditionsa subject of discussion is apparently less interesting for the participants

6 Conclusion

One can say that the Saxon Open Online Course is our contribution to the ldquoyear of theMOOCrdquo (Pappano 2012) motivated by first lighthouse projects of this promising newlearning setting and driven by appropriate funding options we started the SOOC aslearning and teaching experiment

At the current state of the project (the workshops are over and the online course isrunning one week now) we are excited to see how participants will deal with these

12

new learning setting between openness and institutional assessment The e-portfolioswill make parts of their learning process visible just in time and enable direct feedbackof other participants But will they really reflect their learning process or just writesomething down to achieve CPs Will there be discussions among participants or justposts without comments and feedback cf Schulmeister (2010) To which extend dothey need input feedback and summaries by hosts or is it sufficient to just providea topical and organizational framework And finally Are MOOCs suitable learningsettings for higher education and are the experiences of the SOOC applicable for furthercMOOCs

First implications can be adapted in a second run of the SOOC planned for the winterterm 201314

Literaturverzeichnis

Bremer Claudia (2012) ldquoNew format for online courses the open course Future ofLearningrdquo In Proceedings of the eLearning Baltics eLBa 2012 Rostock Germany (citon pp 4 sqq)

Hill Phil (2012) ldquoOnline Educational Delivery Models A Descriptive Viewrdquo In ED-UCAUSE Review NovemverDNovemberDecember pp 85ndash97 URL httpwww educause edu ero article online - educational - delivery - models -descriptive-view (cit on p 2)

Horowitz Bradley (2006) Creators Synthesizers and Consumers URL httpblogelatablecom200602creators-synthesizers-and-consumershtml (cit onp 10)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker and M Cummins (2012) The NMC HorizonReport 2012 Higher Education Edition Tech rep Austin Texas The New MediaConsortium URL httpwwwnmcorgpublicationshorizon-report-2012-higher-ed-edition (cit on p 4)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker M Cummins V Estrada A Freeman andHolly Ludgate (2013) NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition Techrep Austin Texas New Media Consortium URL httpwwwnmcorgnewshorizon-report-2013-higher-ed-edition-here (cit on pp 1 sq 6)

Kahnwald Nina (2009) ldquoInformal Learning in Virtual Communities Individual Prac-tice between Information Retrieval Observation and Participationrdquo In Proceedingsof the 11th General Online Research Conference GOR 09 Ed by M Welker Wien (citon p 10)

Kerres Michael (2006) ldquoPotenziale von Web 20 nutzenrdquo In Handbuch E-LearningExpertenwissen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis - Strategien Instrumente Fallstudien Ed

13

Figure 3 Figure 3 ldquoHow interesting do you regard the four thematic sections of theSOOCrdquo n=96 (Section I) 97 (Section II) 97 (Section III) 98 (Section IV)

523 Previous knowledge and interest

The third step was to ask the participants whether they have some previous experi-ences with elearning 20 and the usage of social media applications in learning andknowledge management contexts and how they would describe it

Only 10 of the participants characterize their prior knowledge as extensive 37say that they have no prior knowledge at all while the majority of 53 indicate to haveat least some prior knowledge in e-learning 20 and social media usage

With regard to the preparing in class workshops the self-assessment in this contextmight be too strict Most participants are already signed up at social networks and evenhave an own weblog Nevertheless they mentioned not to use them actively or not inlearning and knowledge management contexts

As a last question we asked the participants on their preferred topics in SOOC13The most popular section is obviously the section about learning and knowledge man-agement But also the future of education and training seems to be interesting for theparticipants Section 3 which will make copyright net politics and personal conditionsa subject of discussion is apparently less interesting for the participants

6 Conclusion

One can say that the Saxon Open Online Course is our contribution to the ldquoyear of theMOOCrdquo (Pappano 2012) motivated by first lighthouse projects of this promising newlearning setting and driven by appropriate funding options we started the SOOC aslearning and teaching experiment

At the current state of the project (the workshops are over and the online course isrunning one week now) we are excited to see how participants will deal with these

12

new learning setting between openness and institutional assessment The e-portfolioswill make parts of their learning process visible just in time and enable direct feedbackof other participants But will they really reflect their learning process or just writesomething down to achieve CPs Will there be discussions among participants or justposts without comments and feedback cf Schulmeister (2010) To which extend dothey need input feedback and summaries by hosts or is it sufficient to just providea topical and organizational framework And finally Are MOOCs suitable learningsettings for higher education and are the experiences of the SOOC applicable for furthercMOOCs

First implications can be adapted in a second run of the SOOC planned for the winterterm 201314

Literaturverzeichnis

Bremer Claudia (2012) ldquoNew format for online courses the open course Future ofLearningrdquo In Proceedings of the eLearning Baltics eLBa 2012 Rostock Germany (citon pp 4 sqq)

Hill Phil (2012) ldquoOnline Educational Delivery Models A Descriptive Viewrdquo In ED-UCAUSE Review NovemverDNovemberDecember pp 85ndash97 URL httpwww educause edu ero article online - educational - delivery - models -descriptive-view (cit on p 2)

Horowitz Bradley (2006) Creators Synthesizers and Consumers URL httpblogelatablecom200602creators-synthesizers-and-consumershtml (cit onp 10)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker and M Cummins (2012) The NMC HorizonReport 2012 Higher Education Edition Tech rep Austin Texas The New MediaConsortium URL httpwwwnmcorgpublicationshorizon-report-2012-higher-ed-edition (cit on p 4)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker M Cummins V Estrada A Freeman andHolly Ludgate (2013) NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition Techrep Austin Texas New Media Consortium URL httpwwwnmcorgnewshorizon-report-2013-higher-ed-edition-here (cit on pp 1 sq 6)

Kahnwald Nina (2009) ldquoInformal Learning in Virtual Communities Individual Prac-tice between Information Retrieval Observation and Participationrdquo In Proceedingsof the 11th General Online Research Conference GOR 09 Ed by M Welker Wien (citon p 10)

Kerres Michael (2006) ldquoPotenziale von Web 20 nutzenrdquo In Handbuch E-LearningExpertenwissen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis - Strategien Instrumente Fallstudien Ed

13

new learning setting between openness and institutional assessment The e-portfolioswill make parts of their learning process visible just in time and enable direct feedbackof other participants But will they really reflect their learning process or just writesomething down to achieve CPs Will there be discussions among participants or justposts without comments and feedback cf Schulmeister (2010) To which extend dothey need input feedback and summaries by hosts or is it sufficient to just providea topical and organizational framework And finally Are MOOCs suitable learningsettings for higher education and are the experiences of the SOOC applicable for furthercMOOCs

First implications can be adapted in a second run of the SOOC planned for the winterterm 201314

Literaturverzeichnis

Bremer Claudia (2012) ldquoNew format for online courses the open course Future ofLearningrdquo In Proceedings of the eLearning Baltics eLBa 2012 Rostock Germany (citon pp 4 sqq)

Hill Phil (2012) ldquoOnline Educational Delivery Models A Descriptive Viewrdquo In ED-UCAUSE Review NovemverDNovemberDecember pp 85ndash97 URL httpwww educause edu ero article online - educational - delivery - models -descriptive-view (cit on p 2)

Horowitz Bradley (2006) Creators Synthesizers and Consumers URL httpblogelatablecom200602creators-synthesizers-and-consumershtml (cit onp 10)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker and M Cummins (2012) The NMC HorizonReport 2012 Higher Education Edition Tech rep Austin Texas The New MediaConsortium URL httpwwwnmcorgpublicationshorizon-report-2012-higher-ed-edition (cit on p 4)

Johnson Larry Samantha Adams Becker M Cummins V Estrada A Freeman andHolly Ludgate (2013) NMC Horizon Report 2013 Higher Education Edition Techrep Austin Texas New Media Consortium URL httpwwwnmcorgnewshorizon-report-2013-higher-ed-edition-here (cit on pp 1 sq 6)

Kahnwald Nina (2009) ldquoInformal Learning in Virtual Communities Individual Prac-tice between Information Retrieval Observation and Participationrdquo In Proceedingsof the 11th General Online Research Conference GOR 09 Ed by M Welker Wien (citon p 10)

Kerres Michael (2006) ldquoPotenziale von Web 20 nutzenrdquo In Handbuch E-LearningExpertenwissen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis - Strategien Instrumente Fallstudien Ed

13

by Andreas Hohenstein and Karl Wilbers 17 Erg-L Loseblattwerke AugustMuumlnchen Deutscher Wirtschaftsdienst Chap 426 URL httpmediendidaktikuni-duisburg-essendenode2540 (cit on p 5)

McAuley Alexander Bonnie Stewart George Siemens and Dave Cormier (2010) TheMOOC Model for Digital Practice Tech rep University of Prince Edward Island(cit on p 2)

Pappano Laura (2012) The Year of the MOOC URL httpwwwnytimescom20121104educationedlifemassive-open-online-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pacehtml (cit on pp 2 12)

Pscheida Daniela and Thomas Koumlhler (2013) Wissenschaftsbezogene Nutzung von Web20 und Online-Werkzeugen in Sachsen 2012 Dresden TUDpress URL httpnbn-resolvingdeurnnbndebsz14-qucosa-106272 (cit on p 10)

Pscheida Daniela Anja Lorenz Andrea Liszligner and Nina Kahnwald (2013) ldquoTheCourse is Yours Connecting Students and Teachers as Connectivist Learners withOpen Online Coursesrdquo In EDULEARN13 5th annual International Conference onEducation and New Learning Technologies Barcelona Spain International Associa-tion of Technology Education and Development (iated) URL httplibraryiatedorgviewPSCHEIDA2013COU (cit on p 10)

Ravet Serge (2008) ldquoePortfolio for a learning societyrdquo In E-Learning Conference Bruumlssel(cit on p 8)

Redecker Christine (2009) Review of Learning 20 Practices Study on the Impact of Web 20Innovations on Education and Training in Europe Technical report Seville Spain Eu-ropean Commission Joint Research Centre Institute for Prospective TechnologicalStudies URL httpftpjrcesEURdocJRC49108pdf20Seville20Spain(cit on p 10)

Robes Jochen (2012) ldquoMassive Open Online Courses Das Potenzial des offenen undvernetzten Lernensrdquo In Handbuch E-Learning Expertenwissen aus Wissenschaft undPraxis ndash Strategien Instrumente Fallstudien Ed by Andreas Hohenstein and KarlWilbers 42 Erg-L Koumlln Deutscher Wirtschaftsdienst (Wolters Kluwer Deutsch-land) Chap 721 ISBN 978-3-87156-298-3 URL httpwwwweiterbildungsblogdewp-contentuploads201206massive5C_open5C_online5C_courses5C_robespdf (cit on pp 2 4)

Schaarschmidt Nadine Thomas Koumlhler and Sindy Dietsch (2012) ldquoWhere are the lsquoDig-ital Nativesrsquo ndash An empirical study of German High School studentsrsquo attitudes to-ward internet-based learningrdquo In Annual International Conference on Education andNew Learning Technologies EDULEA Barcelona IATED pp 5468ndash5477 ISBN 978-

14

84-695-3491-5 URL httplibraryiatedorgviewSCHAARSCHMIDT2012WHE(cit on p 5)

Schulmeister Rolf (2010) ldquoAnsichten zur Kommentarkultur in Weblogsrdquo In Fokus Me-dienpaumldagogik - Aktuelle Forschungs- und Handlungsfelder Ed by P Bauer H Hoff-mann and Kerstin Mayrberger Preprint Muumlnchen kopaed pp 317ndash347 URLhttpwwwzhwuni-hamburgdeuploadsansichten-zur-kommentarkulturpdf (cit on p 13)

Siemens George (2005) ldquoConnectivism A Learning Theory for the Digital Agerdquo InInternational Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning 21 URL http www itdl org Journal Jan 5C _ 05 article01 htm 20http www elearnspaceorgArticlesconnectivismhtm (cit on pp 2 sq)

15