The 11th International Scientific Conference

eLearning and software for Education

Bucharest, April 25-26, 2015
10.12753/2066-026X-15-000

A CHECKLIST FOR A MOOC ACTIVIST

Gabriela Grosseck1, Carmen Holotescu2, Ramona Bran1, Malinka Ivanova3

1
West University of Timisoara; 2University PolitehnicaTimisoara, Romania; 3Technical University of Sofia, Bulgaria
gabriela.grosseck@e-uvt.ro, carmen.holotescu@upt.ro,ramona.bran@e-uvt.ro, m_ivanova@tu-sofia.bg

Abstract: In spite of the fast development of eLearning and distance learning in our countries (Romania
and Bulgaria), the MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) phenomenon is not popular enough among
educational actors: teachers, researchers, students, lifelong learners or policy makers. More
specifically MOOCs are not integrated in the area of higher education at curriculum level. While in
Bulgaria there is no research that can confirm or reject the important role of MOOCs for introduction
of new reforms, for needs of scientific explorations and for implementation of innovative solutions in
university settings, in Romania the situation is a bit different: there are some initiatives related to Open
Education (Open Educational Resources - OER, Open Educational Practices - OEP) and Massive Open
Online Courses, like those developed by University Politehnica Timisoara in the last two years. But in
both countries, at this moment there are no clear answers to questions like: Will universities accept the
idea of a Massive Online OPEN Courses? Who are the target groups? Should existing platforms be
used or should a new one be created? How do government authorities see the role of Massive Open
Online Courses in support of university education? Will MOOCs projects be started?In this context, the
paper presents the authors’ learning experience as Massive Open Online Courses activists. We have
tried to map / identify which design approaches suit us both at individual and institutional level, by
proposing a step-by-step approach that we called the „P-OOC (Personal Overview of Online
Competencies) Checklist” of a MOOC activist.

Keywords: MOOC, higher education, design, skills, competencies.

I. THE ACTIVIST’S APPROACH

Usually when it comes to talking, discussing or writing about MOOCs, the majority of
university staff seek involvement in the creation of such courses, sometimes not even having previous
experience in running and/or developing online and blended courses. We should recognize the fact
that there is an inflation of literature about pros and cons, sketching strategies, analyzing learners’
behavior, researching learning analytics etc., to the point that Martin Weller [1] stressed „the MOOC
hype is definitely over”. Therefore, we suggest that every person who wants to run a MOOC should
first carry out a serious analysis of the ways in which MOOCs can be integrated in blended university
courses. At the same time, one should also evaluate one’s competences and knowledge in using
MOOCs. Only in this way, can each of us switch from the perspective of proponent to the one of
MOOC activist.
So who is a MOOC activist and what does he/she do?
- He/she participates in MOOCs as a continuous learner (for personal and professional
development).
- He/she integrates MOOCs in his/her own courses.
- He/she encourages his/her peers and students to enroll in MOOCs, by recommending
specific resources connected to their fields of interest.
- He/she organizes academic events aiming to inform educational actors about specific
MOOCs.
- He/she adapts contexts from other MOOCs to his/her educational environment.
- He/she is a MOOC curator.
 - He/she acts as an informed advocate for the MOOC trend.
Therefore, how difficult is it to start a MOOC?
First, let us take a look at how the „story of engagement with MOOCs” [2] developed at
European level.

II. MOOCs EUROPEAN LANDSCAPE

Unquestionably, we’re witnessing in the last years how the European higher education space
was confronted with major challenges. In a series of documents about recent strategies [3], the
European Commission underlined three major challenges:
a) the increase of quality in education and the correlation of the teaching-learning process with
the ample needs of society and labor markets;
b) the adaptation to globalization and the significant growth in number of higher education
students in the world, which threaten Europe’s position as world leader in education;
c) the enhancing and broadening of access to higher education through the valorization of new
technologies.
Although MOOCs first became popular in the USA and Canada in 2008 [1], Europe has only
witnessed a real „MOOC revolution” in the past two years. Thus, in April 2013 the first initiative of
this kind (http://www.openuped.eu/) with partners from 11 countries and run by the European
Association of Distance Teaching Universities – EADTU [4] was launched at paneuropean level. This
initiative considered MOOCs as the connecting bridge between self-study and formal education; and
as the answer to a need for a more accessible system of higher education. The future development of
MOOCs will be more tightly connected with the higher educational system through the recognition of
gained certificates and credits in MOOCs.
Later, in the same year (September 2013) the European Commission published the text
entitled „Open education: innovative teaching and learning for all through new technologies and
educational resources with open access” (COMM 2013, 654 final) that contains challenges and
recommendations of the European Commission to the country members and to the educational and
training institutions. The text mainly refers to the implementation of innovative solutions, to the usage
of open educational resources and to the development of infrastructure in the area of ICT. It
emphasizes the important role of technology in the increased educational efficacy and equal rights in
education.
At the beginning of 2014, in February, the European economic and social committee took a
standpoint concerning the above mentioned text and expressed the categorical support for using new
technologies in learning processes, including MOOCs and OERs. After one month (March 2014) the
European Parliament presented a report related to the new technologies and open educational
resources as a possibility for ensuring quality in education via more accessible and open online
knowledge. It appeals to the European Commission to support the scientific research for the creation,
utilization and implementation of MOOCs and OERs. Furthermore, at the beginning of 2015the
European Parliament listed MOOCs among the „ten technologies which could change our lives” [5].
Thus, it became clear that MOOCs could stimulate the scientific research, but it is very
important that stable models for creation of MOOCs and OERs are certified by the academic
community. Consequently, it is imperative that one should be familiar with previous and ongoing
research projects financed by the European Commission, such as:
- HOME (Higher Education Online: MOOCs the European way): The main goal of the
project HOME is to develop a strong network of MOOCs (http://home.eadtu.eu/).
- eMUNDUS (Fostering international Higher Education collaboration though ICT and open
education): Its aim is focused on a long collaboration among European countries and
Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Canada in the area of higher education
through exploration of the MOOCs potential and virtual mobility
(http://www.menon.org/projects/emundus/).
- EMMA (The European Multiple MOOC Aggregator) is a pilot action supported by the EU
which aims to showcase excellence in innovative teaching methodologies and learning
approaches through the large-scale piloting of MOOCs on different subjects.
(http://platform.europeanmoocs.eu/).
 - MOOC Quality Project - an initiative of the European Foundation for Quality in E-
Learning addresses questions like „Are MOOCs the new model of online education for
all? Are they fit to democratize education? What is a good quality MOOC?”
(http://mooc.efquel.org/).
All these projects have as collateral goal to research several ways in which MOOCs can
contribute and increase the activism of academia staff.

III. NATIONAL LANDSCAPE

According to [6] there are no MOOCs in Romania and Bulgaria. Nevertheless, the MOOCs
offered worldwide represent an important choice for learners in Bulgaria and Romania: they are
among the most active „Courserians” per capita per country/region with over 10k learners [7]. Another
interesting feature is that on Coursera, Romania leads the pack in gender parity with a nearly 50/50
split between men and women [8]. Also, in 2014 a number of Bulgarian teachers took part in a MOOC
for designing ICT-based learning activities; the course was developed in the Hand-on ICT Project and
was available in seven languages, including Bulgarian (http://handsonict.eu).
Unlike Bulgaria, however, in Romania there are several ongoing MOOC initiatives [9]:
a) Developing MOOCs. Examples include:
- UniCampus (http://unicampus.ro): Started in April 2014 by University Politehnica
Timisoara, Unicampus is a project supported by the Ministry of Education and developed
by the Association of Technical Universities from Romania (http://rouni.ro) bringing
together the country’s main polytechnic institutes. The project will offer MOOCs on a
version of Moodle platform based on cMOOCs methodology [10].
- UniBuc Virtual (http://www.unibuc-virtual.net): Credis, the Department of Distance
Learning from Bucharest University, is developing three MOOCs for Teachers Training
on a Google Apps-based platform.
- „VasileGoldis” University from Arad will offer MOOCs in partnership with
FédérationEuropéenne des Écoles.
- Critical Thinking MOOC was developed and ran in 2014 by Maastricht School of
Management Romania on Iversity (http://www.msmromania.org/content/msmro-
produces-first-mooc-eastern-europe).
b) IntegratingMOOCs in blended academic courses. Such projects can be found at University
Politehnica Timisoara, for the Web Programming course [11] and the Instructional
Technologies course [10];
c) Organizing scientific events related to open education. For example, the Romanian Coalition
for OER (http://acces-deschis.ro/ro/oer) organized two national conferences; University
Politehnica Timisoara(http://elearning.upt.ro/workshop-opening-up-education/n-32-70-185/d)
held workshops during the Open Education Week in March, 2014 and 2015; starting with
2014, the International Conference eLSE has a special section dedicated to OER and MOOCs,
co-chaired by the first two authors (http://elseconference.eu);
d) Publishing studies assessing the degree to which students and teachers are familiar with
MOOCs [12].
Due to certain limitations, MOOCs might not have positive effects or they might even disrupt
the academic life from our countries. These issues include:
- there is no basic model [13];
- MOOCs are not certified yet (for now, MOOC providers do not offer credit points, but
only a certificate of graduation);
- MOOCs have an overcrowded class (the large number of participants could render
relevant conversations difficult and could distract the teacher’s attention from each
student);
- low rate of graduation (according to statistics, only 10% of participants in MOOC
courses manage to finish it [14]);
- staying motivated (considering there are no credits on offer and no financial loss either, it
is hard to stay motivated);
- the absence of real human interaction;
 - a fallible grading system(a software which grades automatically is not capable to discern
more subtle aspects involved in writing an essay for example) etc.
Despite all these drawbacks, the authors considered MOOCs as a real „catalyst for
reimagining education” [15], heading to become a significant and possibly a standard element of
credentialed university education, exploiting new pedagogical models, discovering revenue and
lowering costs of both Romanian and Bulgarian academic life.

IV. WHAT IS THE IMPACT OF DEVELOPING A MOOC?

First of all, we should mention a liberalization of education. We have already learned how
educational systems from the whole world are tested and forced to change. We believe this effect of
liberalization and the subsequent opening of education will represent this decade’s true revolution in
education in our countries.
For instance, how could a university from Romania or Bulgaria, offering classic courses,
compete with the offer that can be rapidly accessed online from Harvard or any other top university?
One plausible solution might be offering our own MOOC courses [16] for the subjects we teach and
sharing each other’s university resources (in terms of physical spaces for Polytechnic and West
University from Timisoara - very closed as location or knowledge / content for courses in Romania
and Bulgaria - two of the authors are teaching the same courses - computer sciences). The next step
would be establishing business models [17] – and all the associated sub-issues of scale, sustainability
monetization, accreditation for MOOC learning and openness [18].
Secondly, we should note that MOOCs encourage professional mobility, develop
competencies specific to the knowledge society, make people aware of the importance of lifelong
learning and training, raise self-esteem, and participate in learning and practice communities.
Thirdly, specialists are working on a formula of continuous training by using MOOC courses
in order to improve educational policies at national level, which we hope will increase the quality of
teaching/learning [19].
The authors already have significant articles (disseminated either in the mainstream
publications of the field, or presented in different events) reviewing the literature, explaining the
anatomy of a MOOC, designing and integration of MOOCs in blended courses etc. Moreover, we
consider our research, knowledge, and skills in the field as central elements to the strategy of
facilitating the access to education to thousands of students and of stimulating schools and universities
to adopt new, more innovative and flexible teaching methods.
However, before designing a MOOC, we wanted to check if we are actually qualified for this.
Thus, Table 1 covers a checklist for designing a MOOC, taken and adapted from George Siemens’
‘How to plan and run a MOOC in 9 easy steps’ [20]. The 9 steps he identified are: topic & audience;
teaching staff; content; plan spaces of interaction / interactions and presence; learner creation
(activities); promote and share; iterate and improve. Starting from the above mentioned steps and
using a marketing „P” formula (product, prices, promotion, place, packaging, positioning, people) the
authors of this papers developed a checklist that we called POOC (Personal Overview of Online
Competencies Checklist).

V. CONCLUSIONS

The authors are at the beginning of this adventure, thus we do not know (yet) what models suit
us / or will be successful in the near future.
Although they have already ran MOOCs, universities from Western Europe are not
preoccupied with staff checklists and research seem focused solely on different strategies of enhancing
online institutional visibility and/or establishing business models.
We strongly believe, however, that soon enough the student will be able to tailor his/her own
mix of course, from different universities. We also believe that pioneers in designing MOOCs in our
countries will have a lot to gain. But, in order to achieve this, one should know how (see the POOC
checklist). Consequently, it is the right moment for educational actors (both Romanian and Bulgarian)
to stand out from the crowd and become MOOC activists.
 Table 1. POOC - a MOOC activist’s checklist
STEP
Purpose
Pick an area of knowledge
People (e.g. How Massive
should a MOOC be?)
Persuasion
Possibilities & Perspectives
Pedagogy
Plan spaces of interaction
Plan peer-interactions (How
much Online participation)?
Plan *your* continued
presence
Platforms / Power of
Technology
Price (possible costs)
Partners
Profitable
Positioning (How will the
Courses be provided?)
Packaging
Peer feedback/ peer evaluation
/ peer enhancement
Processing data
Promotion and sharing
Production and maintenance
POINTS for further
consideration
APPROACH
How Open should a MOOC be?Institutional, Faculty or Department level?
Take into consideration what are the personal interests and the expertise
needed for running a MOOC (not too different from the subjects already
taught).
Who is the target audience: students, academics, peers or simply any virtual
participant?
It is important to really understand what MOOCs canprovide. It is pivotal that
tutors experience and understand MOOC options [21] / What are the Pro’s
and Cons’ of such a course?
What are the possible topics? Have different points of view but be
perspicacious!
How will the course be taught online? How do we expect people to learn on
this course? What are the learning outcomes?
What platforms/social networks should we be aware of: distributed,
centralized or decentralized spaces?
Synchronous / Live /Asynchronous /More learner-centered/ Or just push
students towards autonomous learning (avoiding peer-pressure)?
Immerse yourself in the MOOC environment. „Never teach alone, try a
colleague form a different country, different region, or with different views,
bring in guest speakers, video interviews ...Find someone to teach with -
identifying academics willing to devote the necessary time (peers)”. [20]
Have passion!Be a pioneer!Take personaltimeto look at online resources.
Which platform will suit the MOOC and work best for the institution?
Pocketing devices (device in participants’pockets).
How expensive will it be?
Possible partnership with different stakeholders / funders.
Credits, Certificates, Credentials, Badges.
Indirect benefits: expand peernetwork (international teacher connect).
Determine content at two levels: a) institutional (for all courses / linked with
the platform) and b) content (for each course – linked with pedagogy / partof
training/curriculum). Providecommunicationguidelines for the
MOOC.Choose customized content =mix of OERs and self-produced content.
Profile towards vocational training [21], self-paced learning and problem
solving skills.
- Gatheringa course development team (course design / production
schedule (period); test materials etc.).
- Programming/ running / supporting/monitoring / participation.
- Providingpracticeopportunities.
- Policing: privacy issues (establish a Police Academy, why not?).
- Establishing a personalaccess to a plethora of personal mobile devices.
- The capability in evaluating „promisingness” of their ideas, by
developing & testingtechnological, pedagogical interventions.
- Evaluation of learner creation and activities (proper questions).
- Proving the authenticity of learners.
- Sentiment polarity; post-messages; particular problems.
- Purchasing/acquiring experience(s)! from experts / specialists / other
scholars.
- Publishingon a regular basereports / studies / stats.
- Using social media /Iterate and improve.
- Can we afford it in term of sustainability&exploitation?
- From pilot projects to mainstream implementation.
- To provide a sustainable model by:
o following the Perestroika Effect (restructure, reform education
for changing the economic paradigm of universities);
o avoiding the Pandora Box Effect.
- Passport for the future: Positioning MOOC in Europe / Global
community.
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