Multilitteratus Incognitus

This past week the web was abuzz with new research to come out of Harvard and MIT on cheating identification in MOOCs, specifically xMOOCs hosted on the edX platform, but I suspect that any platform that collects appropriate analytics could see this used.  The title of the paper is Detecting and Preventing "Multiple-Account" Cheating in Massive Open Online Courses and it's an interesting read. I find the ways of crunching data collected by web-servers as a way of predicting human behavior fascinating.  While I am more of a qualitative researcher at heart, I do appreciate the ways in which we can use math, data, and analytics to derive patterns. That said, my main argument with the authors of the article are not the methods they use, but rather the actual utility of such an algorithm.  The authors write that CAMEO (Copying Answers using Multiple Existences Online)† is a potential threat to MOOCs because CAMEO is highly accessible. Anyone can create additional ac...

It's been a few days since I started writing about the various reactions I had (and started noting in the margins ;)  ) to a recent article from fellow MOOCers and MOOC researchers Frances and Jenny . I cut my previous post a bit shorter than I intended because it was getting long, and I didn't want it to go on and on. So this is a follow-up blog post t o that original post with some reactions, or thoughts, about what seemed to be to be underlying assumptions about what comes as part-and-parcel for education.  The article seemed to make some assumptions about education, and MOOCs in specific, that I thought should be addressed in some fashion: It is the responsibility of the convener/instructor of the course to play cop... ... be this a traffic cop who directs the flow of the course and "re-centers" it when it gets off course, a dispute cop who gets in between parties who are arguing about a certain topic, and a jail cop for people who don't observe the ...

Happy new year to all! The other day I was catching up on some reading in my Pocket account when I read an article in eLearn Magazine about online doctorates . I feel like I should have a grumpy-cat image on this blog with a big "no" on it since there were a number of things that seemed really wrong to me about this article. Some of them are probably the author's interpretation, or way of explicating things, and other things are wide-spread academia myths (in my view). I think the article author intends well, as the crux of the article seems to be to research things well before you commit to any online program, but things seem to go awry in explanations.  First the author writes: As the number of master's students from the initial flush of fully online degrees stabilizes, those interested in increased revenue streams have opened up the university gates wide and have started to look to doctoral-level education for the next big democratization of higher educati...

It's the final stretch of 2014! This makes it my fourth year in exploring MOOCs - boy does time fly!  When I started off with LAK11 I was really just looking for ways to continue learning for free.  While I do get a tuition benefit at work, this also involves standard semesters of 13 weeks, getting work-release time (since online learning isn't covered by the benefit) and retaining the motivation to keep going through a predefined course and syllabus.  Even when MobiMOOC happened and we formed the MobiMOOC research team I really didn't foresee that the, oddly named, MOOC would catch on fire the way it did.  At the time I was eager to get some initial thoughts together on how to put together a MOOC (now they are called cMOOCs) and put together a Great Big MOOC Book , with others, that was a right mix of research and practice.  Since the MOOC has really expanded a lot over the years, with many different things being called a "MOOC" the original idea might be be...

Alright, #MassiveTeaching (or under its official name: "Teaching Goes Massive: New Skills Need") on Coursera is over, that's all he wrote (and then deleted, and someone else recovered). All joking aside, I decided to participate in the final assignment/test of the course which ultimately turned out to be a Level 1 evaluation. I've included the three questions in my previous blog post about this. What I neglected to include in my previous blog post was a fourth question which went something like this: Would you recommend this course to someone else? The requirement to "pass" the assessment was to grade 4 submissions. I ended up "Grading" 14 submission because I was really surprised at the results. Of these 14 graded assignments, 8 of them were positive (57%) and these respondents claimed that they would, or have already recommended the course to their colleagues. One person commented that this course would be good for professional development an...

It's now the end of Teaching Goes Massive: New Skills Required (aka #massiveteaching) on coursera. Well, almost, we still have a couple of days left. I guess that the lesson here is that we were (the "learners") were punk'd† by Paul-Olivier Dehaye of the Univerisity of Zurich. After that last blog post (and subsequent pickup of the post by George Siemens and others) Inside Higher Education and the Chronicle wanted to chat with me about this MOOC experience. I only had time for one of the two before things went to press, so my 15 minutes of fame went to IHE.  Both IHE and the C hronicle have written about the topic, and have received some information from Coursera on the incident.  Others have also written about it (see here , here and here ) It's surprising to me that the University, and Coursera, waited until after this thing was a big issue in order to respond in the class, and clue people into what was happening. On Wednesday (day 3 of Week 3/3 of the ...

I am back home, and with vacation behind me I guess it's time to get back to work.  I've got the day-job for which I've already created a list of tasks to undertake; the teaching of my newly renumbered course INSDSG 684 (formerly 619) and the updates I want to make to the course materials as well as gearing up for my #altcred experiment, version 2.0; and finally the Great Big MOOC Book which I need to kick into high gear (two big things on the docket: additional reviewers and a publisher). While I was away in Greece I participated in an online Orientation session for my EdD program which starts in August.  The timing was a bit brutal since I needed to be up at 03:00 (Greek time) to participate in an online session that was 18:00 MT. Regardless I did enjoy hearing from my classmates and professors, people who I will get to know more over the next four years.  One of the questions we were prompted to answer as part of our introduction was where do we see ourselves in fi...

The other day, through some source I came across this " 4 downsides of MOOCs " from LearnDash. I should have known better than to read a vendor's blog, but then again sometimes they surprise me.  Anyway, the blog post seemed like link-bait because the downsides of MOOCs do not really seem that thought out. They are more reactionary than a deep pondering if the medium. So, here are my 2c on the issues brought forth: 1. Way to big The main thesis of this brief argument (and it is brief) is that because there are too many  people enrolled in the course it's hard to have intimate learning moments, access to the professor is limited, and there is too much of a chance of homogeneity of thought, so you don't learn to expand your worldview. That said, just because MOOCs have many participants in them it does not mean that you can't find a working group, a smaller cadre of students who would like to meet more regularly, in person or through something like a hangout...

In a few days I will be leaving on vacation, so I won't be MOOCing...or at least I won't be MOOing.  I have downloaded textual materials on my iPad, and I plan on getting a local SIM where I go to keep up with my RSS feeds (until Google Reader decides to kick the bucket).  I thought it would be a good idea to write a few thoughts while I have a hardware keyboard in hand. First up, edX and the Ancient Greek Hero course that I have been following. In a previous post I had mentioned that I had fallen behind with reading of the Iliad Scrolls (the side materials for the course) and I was only keeping up with the main textbook, the Ancient Greek Hero in 24 hours. Week 6 and 7 were actually quite long, compared to previous weeks, in terms of reading, so I have fallen behind on that one too. It is on my iPad, so I will be completing it during my vacation.  That said I did have a lightbulb moment when I was thinking of academic rigor for MOOCs and how xMOOCs are replicating exi...

http://harvardpolitics.com/covers/higher-education/tenure-tune-up/ I've been thinking about the concept of tenure these days, and the general concept or career prospects for the next 30 years for me.  I've applied to a PhD program in our College of Management focusing on Organizations and Social Change . One of my old professors, who also gave me a recommendation, asked me what I wanted to do with the PhD.  The interesting thing is that with a PhD, and without a PhD I am content in my current job role in academia.  I think a PhD would give me bragging rights (not that I'd want everyone to call me Doctor so-and-so), but it would also open up some avenues for jobs that are normally not open to those without a PhD, including teaching jobs. It is no secret that there just aren't that many tenure jobs around, and with the adjunctification of higher education, the situation may become worse. Who knows? Maybe I am pessimistic, but I don't see things getting better at...

A couple of weeks ago I was online at the Sloan-C conference on Emerging Technologies for Online learning. It seems as though MOOCs were the thing for this conference, and in specific the different varieties of MOOCs.  That said, itseems like many acronyms were floating around both for non-MOOCs, and MOOC-like things such as SPOC, MOLE, BOOC and so on. I've written about the sillyness of acronyms before on this blog, and those following me on twitter probably saw my virtual eye-rolling when I was live-tweeting sessions. Don't get me wrong, I did like acronyms earlier in life, but mostly as a way to play with language. Now, in this environment, acronyms seem like a way to get you noticed, or to get you a paper that others may cite in their papers so you can get some research-cred.  Maybe I am a cynic, but I find that acronyms, in these cases, do obfiscate what's happening or trying to happen. For instance, I've written before about SPOC (small private online course). ...

Well, another MOOC is now complete!  I still have a few more readings in Pocket to go through, blogs from fellow bloggers.  I have to say that the materials in this MOOC weren't a revelation for me.  I have encountered these topics before in my professional career, especially more recently when topics like MOOCs and alternative credentialing and badges are hot topics. If I already knew some of these things, why join?  Well, as we've said before, content isn't king.  Content is an important part, but not king.  For me, it's about interacting with other people, and getting to find out other important SMEs and thinkers in the field. To agree, disagree, debate, and write.  In addition to some of the usual suspects, like Serena (which gives me good reasons to practice my Italian :-)  ) and  brainysmurf , this time around I met another interesting MOOCer, Rolin Moe ( blog here ). I don't always agree with what he writes, but his blog was always a...

I just noticed on the Google group for mobimooc that my MRT colleagues ( Micheal and Rebecca ) have posted their guides on how they will be participating in MobiMOOC this year, so I thought that it might be a good idea to do the same since mobiMOOC just started, and it's good to set expectations ;-) I have to say that I generally don't come back for "seconds" once a MOOC is done. Once the course is done, I don't feel the need to come back for the second iteration, but MobiMOOC is different for me.  Last year I got a certificate for  being a memorable participant in the MOOC, so I felt that I should be coming back this year and reprising the role ;-) Heck, not that we have badges, it's even more incentive :-)  The other reason for coming back is that my fellow MRT members are going to be here, and this is a group of people that I've been able to communicate, learn, and co-research with for more than one year ; this is pretty amazing considering that when...

So, gamemooc is over!  Well, almost! It's on Hiatus!  We've completed 5 weeks (of the 6 in total) with Week 6 coming back on September 10th to wrap up.  I've noted it in my calendar, and hope to be able to come back and wrap up. Coming into this MOOC I wasn't sure what to expect.  It was using a site meant for guild communications, which seemed apropos for the topic, but at the same time it was something new to me (schematically though, quite similar to google groups and ning so it wasn't too much of a shocker). The weekly themes that we tackled were quite interesting, ranging from why gaming to specifics of gamification, alternative credentialing, types of games, sharing of games in educational contexts, and when the rubber meets the road: hurdles toward implementing games in the classroom. There were a lot of interesting participants in this MOOC, and quite a few interesting guests in the hangouts (that were recorded and posted later on to youtube).  In w...

My colleagues and fellow MRT member, Osvaldo, posted an interesting blog post the other day .  It is interesting in and of itself, but if taken along with the Chronicle's What's the Problem with MOOCs , if gives you a whole other dimension. Osvaldo makes reference to Bonnie Stewart's post (this was new to me, so thank you for the link :-)  ) which is slightly reminiscent of the whole "digital natives" thing in how participants are consuming AND producing. Osvaldo's post makes reference to the 90-10 rule (or 90-9-1 rule, depending on how you heard it first)  where 90% of the participants in some social activity online are lurkers, while 10% are producers (the 90-9-1 rule states 90% lurkers, 9% contributors, 1% creators). and how this is evident in the MOOCs that we have seen thus far. This makes sense, at least from an anecdotal standpoint, from my own experiences in MOOCs.  Granted Change11 was a bit of an aberration because it was SO LONG that I really ...

Well, the BonkOpen MOOC is almost over, I earned my badge (seen on the right) and in the process picked up some new knowledge, information, skills, and professional contacts! At the same time I was able to see Blackboard Learn in action as a host for a massive online course. I think, that by and large, the MOOC was a good one, and the organizers and coordinators were responsive to the people who attended the MOOC and modified it, as the MOOC progressed, based on the feedback of the participants. There were a number of good things about the MOOC, but also a few mis-steps.  Here are some lessons I learned about using an LMS for a MOOC. No need for introductions . In a MOOC there are just way too many people to make introductions feasible.  The introduction isn't for the speaker to say who they are, but rather for the hearer to know who the speaker is.  This wasn't accomplished with the introductions in this MOOC.  The introductions were setup like a "normal" 15-...

This morning, before I left for work, an article caught my eye in my RSS reader from Inside Higher Education (amazingly, they gave me enough of a blurb to want to read the article - usually they don't!).   The article is about an Italian University that is going English-Only for their instruction . This article is an interesting read (I can't wait until the comments start coming in). My initial reaction was one of being taken aback.  Why the heck would a national university use a language for instruction that IS NOT the language of the country?  My secondary reaction was one of opportunity (Imagine old style cartoons with dollar signs in the character's eyes ;-)  ).  Since English is a language that I understand very well, and obviously use on a daily basis, I thought that this is an opportunity for people like me to work in other countries and at the same time not have to worry about attaining an Academic Language Proficiency in the national la...