MOOC Learning Experience Design: Issues and Challenges

Abstract

This paper will present current work on various frameworks that are aimed at guiding the research, development, and evaluation efforts around Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Initiatives and activities, including current work by the National Research Council (NRC) in the context of Learning and Performance Support Systems and MOOCs, will be presented along with outstanding challenges and issues to be addressed in the near future. Findings from case studies of Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and MOOCs will be presented which suggest that learning experiences are impacted by much more than tools and technologies. There is the potential for an enormous palette of possibilities for creating effective, meaningful, and successful learning experiences, as well as many important issues and challenges to address. Recommendations coming of out of recent cMOOC surveys and forums will highlight participant focused and learner driven processes along with a changing notion of time and space in online learning environments. The paper also unveils current and future areas of research and development in a new Learning and Performance Support System (LPSS) program at NRC, including learning analytics, big data, and educational data mining, as well as ethics and privacy issues in networked environments and the use of personal learning data to feed into the research and development process.