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- Hasso-Plattner-Institut für Digital Engineering GmbH (125) (remove)
“How can a course structure be redesigned based on empirical data to enhance the learning effectiveness through a student-centered approach using objective criteria?”, was the research question we asked. “Digital Twins for Virtual Commissioning of Production Machines” is a course using several innovative concepts including an in-depth practical part with online experiments, called virtual labs. The teaching-learning concept is continuously evaluated. Card Sorting is a popular method for designing information architectures (IA), “a practice of effectively organizing, structuring, and labeling the content of a website or application into a structuref that enables efficient navigation” [11]. In the presented higher education context, a so-called hybrid card sort was used, in which each participants had to sort 70 cards into seven predefined categories or create new categories themselves. Twelve out of 28 students voluntarily participated in the process and short interviews were conducted after the activity. The analysis of the category mapping creates a quantitative measure of the (dis-)similarity of the keywords in specific categories using hierarchical clustering (HCA). The learning designer could then interpret the results to make decisions about the number, labeling and order of sections in the course.
StudyMe
(2022)
N-of-1 trials are multi-crossover self-experiments that allow individuals to systematically evaluate the effect of interventions on their personal health goals. Although several tools for N-of-1 trials exist, there is a gap in supporting non-experts in conducting their own user-centric trials. In this study, we present StudyMe, an open-source mobile application that is freely available from https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=health.studyu.me and offers users flexibility and guidance in configuring every component of their trials. We also present research that informed the development of StudyMe, focusing on trial creation. Through an initial survey with 272 participants, we learned that individuals are interested in a variety of personal health aspects and have unique ideas on how to improve them. In an iterative, user-centered development process with intermediate user tests, we developed StudyMe that features an educational part to communicate N-of-1 trial concepts. A final empirical evaluation of StudyMe showed that all participants were able to create their own trials successfully using StudyMe and the app achieved a very good usability rating. Our findings suggest that StudyMe provides a significant step towards enabling individuals to apply a systematic science-oriented approach to personalize health-related interventions and behavior modifications in their everyday lives.
Subject-oriented learning
(2019)
The transformation to a digitized company changes not only the work but also social context for the employees and requires inter alia new knowledge and skills from them. Additionally, individual action problems arise. This contribution proposes the subject-oriented learning theory, in which the employees´ action problems are the starting point of training activities in learning factories. In this contribution, the subject-oriented learning theory is exemplified and respective advantages for vocational training in learning factories are pointed out both theoretically and practically. Thereby, especially the individual action problems of learners and the infrastructure are emphasized as starting point for learning processes and competence development.
Thai MOOC academy
(2023)
Thai MOOC Academy is a national digital learning platform that has been serving as a mechanism for promoting lifelong learning in Thailand since 2017. It has recently undergone significant improvements and upgrades, including the implementation of a credit bank system and a learner’s eportfolio system interconnected with the platform. Thai MOOC Academy is introducing a national credit bank system for accreditation and management, which allows for the transfer of expected learning outcomes and educational qualifications between formal education, non-formal education, and informal education. The credit bank system has five distinct features, including issuing forgery-prevented certificates, recording learning results, transferring external credits within the same wallet, accumulating learning results, and creating a QR code for verification purposes. The paper discusses the features and future potential of Thai MOOC Academy, as it is extended towards a sandbox for the national credit bank system in Thailand.
This paper presents a new design for MOOCs for professional development of skills needed to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals – the CoMOOC or Co-designed Massive Open Online Collaboration. The CoMOOC model is based on co-design with multiple stakeholders including end-users within the professional communities the CoMOOC aims to reach. This paper shows how the CoMOOC model could help the tertiary sector deliver on the UN Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) – including but not limited to SDG 4 Education – by providing a more effective vehicle for professional development at a scale that the UNSDGs require. Interviews with professionals using MOOCs, and design-based research with professionals have informed the development of the Co-MOOC model. This research shows that open, online, collaborative learning experiences are highly effective for building professional community knowledge. Moreover, this research shows that the collaborative learning design at the heart of the CoMOOC model is feasible cross-platform Research with teachers working in crisis contexts in Lebanon, many of whom were refugees, will be presented to show how this form of large scale, co-designed, online learning can support professionals, even in the most challenging contexts, such as mass displacement, where expertise is urgently required.
Recent findings suggest a role of oxytocin on the tendency to spontaneously mimic the emotional facial expressions of others. Oxytocin-related increases of facial mimicry, however, seem to be dependent on contextual factors. Given previous literature showing that people preferentially mimic emotional expressions of individuals associated with high (vs. low) rewards, we examined whether the reward value of the mimicked agent is one factor influencing the oxytocin effects on facial mimicry. To test this hypothesis, 60 male adults received 24 IU of either intranasal oxytocin or placebo in a double-blind, between-subject experiment. Next, the value of male neutral faces was manipulated using an associative learning task with monetary rewards. After the reward associations were learned, participants watched videos of the same faces displaying happy and angry expressions. Facial reactions to the emotional expressions were measured with electromyography. We found that participants judged as more pleasant the face identities associated with high reward values than with low reward values. However, happy expressions by low rewarding faces were more spontaneously mimicked than high rewarding faces. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find a significant direct effect of intranasal oxytocin on facial mimicry, nor on the reward-driven modulation of mimicry. Our results support the notion that mimicry is a complex process that depends on contextual factors, but failed to provide conclusive evidence of a role of oxytocin on the modulation of facial mimicry.
The MOOC-CEDIA Observatory
(2021)
In the last few years, an important amount of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS) has been made available to the worldwide community, mainly by European and North American universities (i.e. United States). Since its emergence, the adoption of these educational resources has been widely studied by several research groups and universities with the aim of understanding their evolution and impact in educational models, through the time. In the case of Latin America, data from the MOOC-UC Observatory (updated until 2018) shows that, the adoption of these courses by universities in the region has been slow and heterogeneous. In the specific case of Ecuador, although some data is available, there is lack of information regarding the construction, publication and/or adoption of such courses by universities in the country. Moreover, there are not updated studies designed to identify and analyze the barriers and factors affecting the adoption of MOOCs in the country. The aim of this work is to present the MOOC-CEDIA Observatory, a web platform that offers interactive visualizations on the adoption of MOOCs in Ecuador. The main results of the study show that: (1) until 2020 there have been 99 MOOCs in Ecuador, (2) the domains of MOOCs are mostly related to applied sciences, social sciences and natural sciences, with the humanities being the least covered, (3) Open edX and Moodle are the most widely used platforms to deploy such courses. It is expected that the conclusions drawn from this analysis, will allow the design of recommendations aimed to promote the creation and use of quality MOOCs in Ecuador and help institutions to chart the route for their adoption, both for internal use by their community but also by society in general.
About 15 years ago, the first Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) appeared and revolutionized online education with more interactive and engaging course designs. Yet, keeping learners motivated and ensuring high satisfaction is one of the challenges today's course designers face. Therefore, many MOOC providers employed gamification elements that only boost extrinsic motivation briefly and are limited to platform support. In this article, we introduce and evaluate a gameful learning design we used in several iterations on computer science education courses. For each of the courses on the fundamentals of the Java programming language, we developed a self-contained, continuous story that accompanies learners through their learning journey and helps visualize key concepts. Furthermore, we share our approach to creating the surrounding story in our MOOCs and provide a guideline for educators to develop their own stories. Our data and the long-term evaluation spanning over four Java courses between 2017 and 2021 indicates the openness of learners toward storified programming courses in general and highlights those elements that had the highest impact. While only a few learners did not like the story at all, most learners consumed the additional story elements we provided. However, learners' interest in influencing the story through majority voting was negligible and did not show a considerable positive impact, so we continued with a fixed story instead. We did not find evidence that learners just participated in the narrative because they worked on all materials. Instead, for 10-16% of learners, the story was their main course motivation. We also investigated differences in the presentation format and concluded that several longer audio-book style videos were most preferred by learners in comparison to animated videos or different textual formats. Surprisingly, the availability of a coherent story embedding examples and providing a context for the practical programming exercises also led to a slightly higher ranking in the perceived quality of the learning material (by 4%). With our research in the context of storified MOOCs, we advance gameful learning designs, foster learner engagement and satisfaction in online courses, and help educators ease knowledge transfer for their learners.
The COVID-19 pandemic emergency has forced a profound reshape of our lives. Our way of working and studying has been disrupted with the result of an acceleration of the shift to the digital world. To properly adapt to this change, we need to outline and implement new urgent strategies and approaches which put learning at the center, supporting workers and students to further develop “future proof” skills. In the last period, universities and educational institutions have demonstrated that they can play an important role in this context, also leveraging on the potential of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which proved to be an important vehicle of flexibility and adaptation in a general context characterised by several constraints. From March 2020 till now, we have witnessed an exponential growth of MOOCs enrollments numbers, with “traditional” students interested in different topics not necessarily integrated to their curricular studies. To support students and faculty development during the spreading of the pandemic, Politecnico di Milano focused on one main dimension: faculty development for a better integration of digital tools and contents in the e-learning experience. The current discussion focuses on how to improve the integration of MOOCs in the in-presence activities to create meaningful learning and teaching experiences, thereby leveraging blended learning approaches to engage both students and external stakeholders to equip them with future job relevance skills.
Scrollytellings are an innovative form of web content. Combining the benefits of books, images, movies, and video games, they are a tool to tell compelling stories and provide excellent learning opportunities. Due to their multi-modality, creating high-quality scrollytellings is not an easy task. Different professions, such as content designers, graphics designers, and developers, need to collaborate to get the best out of the possibilities the scrollytelling format provides. Collaboration unlocks great potential. However, content designers cannot create scrollytellings directly and always need to consult with developers to implement their vision. This can result in misunderstandings. Often, the resulting scrollytelling will not match the designer’s vision sufficiently, causing unnecessary iterations. Our project partner Typeshift specializes in the creation of individualized scrollytellings for their clients. Examined existing solutions for authoring interactive content are not optimally suited for creating highly customized scrollytellings while still being able to manipulate all their elements programmatically. Based on their experience and expertise, we developed an editor to author scrollytellings in the lively.next live-programming environment. In this environment, a graphical user interface for content design is combined with powerful possibilities for programming behavior with the morphic system. The editor allows content designers to take on large parts of the creation process of scrollytellings on their own, such as creating the visible elements, animating content, and fine-tuning the scrollytelling. Hence, developers can focus on interactive elements such as simulations and games. Together with Typeshift, we evaluated the tool by recreating an existing scrollytelling and identified possible future enhancements. Our editor streamlines the creation process of scrollytellings. Content designers and developers can now both work on the same scrollytelling. Due to the editor inside of the lively.next environment, they can both work with a set of tools familiar to them and their traits. Thus, we mitigate unnecessary iterations and misunderstandings by enabling content designers to realize large parts of their vision of a scrollytelling on their own. Developers can add advanced and individual behavior. Thus, developers and content designers benefit from a clearer distribution of tasks while keeping the benefits of collaboration.
Information technology and digital solutions as enablers in the tourism sector require continuous development of skills, as digital transformation is characterized by fast change, complexity and uncertainty. This research investigates how a cMOOC concept could support the tourism industry. A consortium of three universities, a tourism association, and a tourist attraction investigates online learning needs and habits of tourism industry stakeholders in the field of digitalization in a cross-border study in the Baltic Sea region. The multi-national survey (n = 244) reveals a high interest in participating in an online learning community, with two-thirds of respondents seeing opportunities to contributing to such community apart from consuming knowledge. The paper demonstrates preferred ways of learning, motivational and hampering aspects as well as types of possible contributions.
TransPipe
(2021)
Online learning environments, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), often rely on videos as a major component to convey knowledge. However, these videos exclude potential participants who do not understand the lecturer’s language, regardless of whether that is due to language unfamiliarity or aural handicaps. Subtitles and/or interactive transcripts solve this issue, ease navigation based on the content, and enable indexing and retrieval by search engines. Although there are several automated speech-to-text converters and translation tools, their quality varies and the process of integrating them can be quite tedious. Thus, in practice, many videos on MOOC platforms only receive subtitles after the course is already finished (if at all) due to a lack of resources. This work describes an approach to tackle this issue by providing a dedicated tool, which is closing this gap between MOOC platforms and transcription and translation tools and offering a simple workflow that can easily be handled by users with a less technical background. The proposed method is designed and evaluated by qualitative interviews with three major MOOC providers.
Like conventional software projects, projects in model-driven software engineering require adequate management of multiple versions of development artifacts, importantly allowing living with temporary inconsistencies. In the case of model-driven software engineering, employed versioning approaches also have to handle situations where different artifacts, that is, different models, are linked via automatic model transformations.
In this report, we propose a technique for jointly handling the transformation of multiple versions of a source model into corresponding versions of a target model, which enables the use of a more compact representation that may afford improved execution time of both the transformation and further analysis operations. Our approach is based on the well-known formalism of triple graph grammars and a previously introduced encoding of model version histories called multi-version models. In addition to showing the correctness of our approach with respect to the standard semantics of triple graph grammars, we conduct an empirical evaluation that demonstrates the potential benefit regarding execution time performance.
TRIPOD
(2021)
Inertial measurement units (IMUs) enable easy to operate and low-cost data recording for gait analysis. When combined with treadmill walking, a large number of steps can be collected in a controlled environment without the need of a dedicated gait analysis laboratory. In order to evaluate existing and novel IMU-based gait analysis algorithms for treadmill walking, a reference dataset that includes IMU data as well as reliable ground truth measurements for multiple participants and walking speeds is needed. This article provides a reference dataset consisting of 15 healthy young adults who walked on a treadmill at three different speeds. Data were acquired using seven IMUs placed on the lower body, two different reference systems (Zebris FDMT-HQ and OptoGait), and two RGB cameras. Additionally, in order to validate an existing IMU-based gait analysis algorithm using the dataset, an adaptable modular data analysis pipeline was built. Our results show agreement between the pressure-sensitive Zebris and the photoelectric OptoGait system (r = 0.99), demonstrating the quality of our reference data. As a use case, the performance of an algorithm originally designed for overground walking was tested on treadmill data using the data pipeline. The accuracy of stride length and stride time estimations was comparable to that reported in other studies with overground data, indicating that the algorithm is equally applicable to treadmill data. The Python source code of the data pipeline is publicly available, and the dataset will be provided by the authors upon request, enabling future evaluations of IMU gait analysis algorithms without the need of recording new data.
Universitat Politècnica de València’s Experience with EDX MOOC Initiatives During the Covid Lockdown
(2021)
In March 2020, when massive lockdowns started to be enforced around the world to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, edX launched two initiatives to help students around the world providing free certificates for its courses, RAP, for member institutions and OCE, for any accredited academic institution. In this paper we analyze how Universitat Poltècnica de València contributed with its courses to both initiatives, providing almost 14,000 free certificate codes in total, and how UPV used the RAP initiative as a customer, describing the mechanism used to distribute more than 22,000 codes for free certificates to more than 7,000 UPV community members, what led to the achievement of more than 5,000 free certificates. We also comment the results of a post initiative survey answered by 1,612 UPV members about 3,241 edX courses, in which they communicated a satisfaction of 4,69 over 5 with the initiative.
The main aim of this article is to explore how learning analytics and synchronous collaboration could improve course completion and learner outcomes in MOOCs, which traditionally have been delivered asynchronously. Based on our experience with developing BigBlueButton, a virtual classroom platform that provides educators with live analytics, this paper explores three scenarios with business focused MOOCs to improve outcomes and strengthen learned skills.
MOOCs have been produced using a variety of instructional design approaches and frameworks. This paper presents experiences from the instructional approach based on the ADDIE model applied to designing and producing MOOCs in the Erasmus+ strategic partnership on Open Badge Ecosystem for Research Data Management (OBERRED). Specifically, this paper describes the case study of the production of the MOOC “Open Badges for Open Science”, delivered on the European MOOC platform EMMA. The key goal of this MOOC is to help learners develop a capacity to use Open Badges in the field of Research Data Management (RDM). To produce the MOOC, the ADDIE model was applied as a generic instructional design model and a systematic approach to the design and development following the five design phases: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation. This paper outlines the MOOC production including methods, templates and tools used in this process including the interactive micro-content created with H5P in form of Open Educational Resources and digital credentials created with Open Badges and issued to MOOC participants upon successful completion of MOOC levels. The paper also outlines the results from qualitative evaluation, which applied the cognitive walkthrough methodology to elicit user requirements. The paper ends with conclusions about pros and cons of using the ADDIE model in MOOC production and formulates recommendations for further work in this area.
Founded in 2013, OpenClassrooms is a French online learning company that offers both paid courses and free MOOCs on a wide range of topics, including computer science and education. In 2021, in partnership with the EDA research unit, OpenClassrooms shared a database to solve the problem of how to increase persistence in their paid courses, which consist of a series of MOOCs and human mentoring. Our statistical analysis aims to identify reasons for dropouts that are due to the course design rather than demographic predictors or external factors.We aim to identify at-risk students, i.e. those who are on the verge of dropping out at a specific moment. To achieve this, we use learning analytics to characterize student behavior. We conducted data analysis on a sample of data related to the “Web Designers” and “Instructional Design” courses. By visualizing the student flow and constructing speed and acceleration predictors, we can identify which parts of the course need to be calibrated and when particular attention should be paid to these at-risk students.
Quantifying neurological disorders from voice is a rapidly growing field of research and holds promise for unobtrusive and large-scale disorder monitoring. The data recording setup and data analysis pipelines are both crucial aspects to effectively obtain relevant information from participants. Therefore, we performed a systematic review to provide a high-level overview of practices across various neurological disorders and highlight emerging trends. PRISMA-based literature searches were conducted through PubMed, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore to identify publications in which original (i.e., newly recorded) datasets were collected. Disorders of interest were psychiatric as well as neurodegenerative disorders, such as bipolar disorder, depression, and stress, as well as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's disease, and speech impairments (aphasia, dysarthria, and dysphonia). Of the 43 retrieved studies, Parkinson's disease is represented most prominently with 19 discovered datasets. Free speech and read speech tasks are most commonly used across disorders. Besides popular feature extraction toolkits, many studies utilise custom-built feature sets. Correlations of acoustic features with psychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders are presented. In terms of analysis, statistical analysis for significance of individual features is commonly used, as well as predictive modeling approaches, especially with support vector machines and a small number of artificial neural networks. An emerging trend and recommendation for future studies is to collect data in everyday life to facilitate longitudinal data collection and to capture the behavior of participants more naturally. Another emerging trend is to record additional modalities to voice, which can potentially increase analytical performance.
The goal of this paper is to study the demand factors driving enrollment in massive open online courses. Using course level data from a French MOOC platform, we study the course, teacher and institution related characteristics that influence the enrollment decision of students, in a setting where enrollment is open to all students without administrative barriers. Coverage from social and traditional media done around the course is a key driver. In addition, the language of instruction and the (estimated) amount of work needed to complete the course also have a significant impact. The data also suggests that the presence of same-side externalities is limited. Finally, preferences of national and of international students tend to differ on several dimensions.
In an effort to describe and produce different formats for video instruction, the research community in technology-enhanced learning, and MOOC scholars in particular, have focused on the general style of video production: whether it is a digitally scripted “talk-and-chalk” or a “talking head” version of a learning unit. Since these production styles include various sub-elements, this paper deconstructs the inherited elements of video production in the context of educational live-streams. Using over 700 videos – both from synchronous and asynchronous modalities of large video-based platforms (YouTube and Twitch), 92 features were found in eight categories of video production. These include commonly analyzed features such as the use of green screen and a visible instructor, but also less studied features such as social media connections and changing camera perspective depending on the topic being covered. Overall, the research results enable an analysis of common video production styles and a toolbox for categorizing new formats – independent of their final (a)synchronous use in MOOCs. Keywords: video production, MOOC video styles, live-streaming.
Which event happened first?
(2021)
First come, first served: Critical choices between alternative actions are often made based on events external to an organization, and reacting promptly to their occurrence can be a major advantage over the competition. In Business Process Management (BPM), such deferred choices can be expressed in process models, and they are an important aspect of process engines. Blockchain-based process execution approaches are no exception to this, but are severely limited by the inherent properties of the platform: The isolated environment prevents direct access to external entities and data, and the non-continual runtime based entirely on atomic transactions impedes the monitoring and detection of events. In this paper we provide an in-depth examination of the semantics of deferred choice, and transfer them to environments such as the blockchain. We introduce and compare several oracle architectures able to satisfy certain requirements, and show that they can be implemented using state-of-the-art blockchain technology.
Clustering in education is important in identifying groups of objects in order to find linked patterns of correlations in educational datasets. As such, MOOCs provide a rich source of educational datasets which enable a wide selection of options to carry out clustering and an opportunity for cohort analyses. In this experience paper, five research studies on clustering in MOOCs are reviewed, drawing out several reasonings, methods, and students’ clusters that reflect certain kinds of learning behaviours. The collection of the varied clusters shows that each study identifies and defines clusters according to distinctive engagement patterns. Implications and a summary are provided at the end of the paper.
xMOOCs
(2023)
The World Health Organization designed OpenWHO.org to provide an inclusive and accessible online environment to equip learners across the globe with critical up-to-date information and to be able to effectively protect themselves in health emergencies. The platform thus focuses on the eXtended Massive Open Online Course (xMOOC) modality – contentfocused and expert-driven, one-to-many modelled, and self-paced for scalable learning. In this paper, we describe how OpenWHO utilized xMOOCs to reach mass audiences during the COVID-19 pandemic; the paper specifically examines the accessibility, language inclusivity and adaptability of hosted xMOOCs. As of February 2023, OpenWHO had 7.5 million enrolments across 200 xMOOCs on health emergency, epidemic, pandemic and other public health topics available across 65 languages, including 46 courses targeted for the COVID-19 pandemic. Our results suggest that the xMOOC modality allowed OpenWHO to expand learning during the pandemic to previously underrepresented groups, including women, participants ages 70 and older, and learners younger than age 20. The OpenWHO use case shows that xMOOCs should be considered when there is a need for massive knowledge transfer in health emergency situations, yet the approach should be context-specific according to the type of health emergency, targeted population and region. Our evidence also supports previous calls to put intervention elements that contribute to removing barriers to access at the core of learning and health information dissemination. Equity must be the fundamental principle and organizing criteria for public health work.
“One video fit for all”
(2023)
Online learning in mathematics has always been challenging, especially for mathematics in STEM education. This paper presents how to make “one fit for all” lecture videos for mathematics in STEM education. In general, we do believe that there is no such thing as “one fit for all” video. The curriculum requires a high level of prior knowledge in mathematics from high school to get a good understanding, and the variation of prior knowledge levels among STEM education students is often high. This creates challenges for both online teaching and on-campus teaching. This article presents experimenting and researching on a video format where students can get a real-time feeling, and which fits their needs regarding their existing prior knowledge. They have the possibility to ask and receive answers during the video without having to feel that they must jump into different sources, which helps to reduce unnecessary distractions. The fundamental video format presented here is that of dynamic branching videos, which has to little degree been researched in education related studies. The reason might be that this field is quite new for higher education, and there is relatively high requirement on the video editing skills from the teachers’ side considering the platforms that are available so far. The videos are implemented for engineering students who take the Linear Algebra course at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in spring 2023. Feedback from the students gathered via anonymous surveys so far (N = 21) is very positive. With the high suitability for online teaching, this video format might lead the trend of online learning in the future. The design and implementation of dynamic videos in mathematics in higher education was presented for the first time at the EMOOCs conference 2023.