ScHARR MOOC Diaries - Part XVI: Catering for diversity

Part XVI: Catering for diversity

For this week's blog, we wanted to share with you what has been arguably the most challenging aspect of building course materials for our Sustainable Healthy Diets MOOC: catering to and engaging such a diverse range of learners.

Of the three MOOCs we had offered here at the University of Sheffield, the ‘Sustainable Healthy Diets’ MOOC  attracted the most diverse audience, from sixth formers, to retired people and others never having studied at University level, as well as participants who were educated to Masters and PhD level, (with some already having specialist knowledge in the field)  whilst others who had signed up from India were not very confident in communicating in English.  As a consequence we designed material to try to pitch the level at one that was accessible to all.

In order to do this,  we decided to use a social constructivist approach to learning because of the nature / heterogeneity of those participating in the healthy sustainable diets MOOC (which was the philosophy behind the first MOOCs developed). The idea was to shift the focus from the formal academic content to a collaborative learning approach, where participants with greater knowledge and understanding could help those at an earlier stage in their learning to construct their knowledge and critical reflection.

The learning materials we selected reflected this - rather than focusing only on academic sources which may have alienated those participants not used to reading academic papers through the use of complex language and the scientific terminology, we chose to also include non scientific materials, such as newspaper articles. These were utilised more as prompts to facilitate participant discussion as opposed to as reliable sources of information.

Therefore some participants who may have been expecting more of a didactic style pedagogy, (which some of the more recent MOOCs in the USA have used) could have been disappointed with this approach, however we have had a great deal of positive feedback regarding the range of learning materials included and more importantly regarding the participatory and collaborative style of learning.

What is really encouraging to us as hosts, is the time that those who are more educated or knowledgeable in this subject area have been prepared to give in order to contribute to the discussions and further the debate and research agenda. This really captures the essence of a MOOC in widening participation, raising aspirations and communicating essential information to our citizens around the globe.

Weekly Webinars!

Week 2 webinar in full swing!

One of the most exciting aspects of our participation has been our weekly live webinars; not all institutions offering MOOCs have access to a synchronous webinar tool such as Blackboard Collaborate.

Fortunately within the School of Health and Related Research we do have this tool. We have invested in this primarily for use in enhancing the delivery of our post-graduate distance learning programmes such as the Master of Public Health (distance learning).

You can watch last week's lively webinar session below...



Luke and Angie

ScHARR MOOC Diaries - Part XIV: Sustainable Healthy Diets - induction week review

Part XIV: Sustainable Healthy Diets - induction week review

The Sustainable Healthy Diets MOOC begins

'Mission Control Centre' By NASACjosefy at en.wikipedia

It was 9am on the 17th June. The MOOC team were assembled at ScHARR MOOC headquarters, (aka Regent Court!), holding their breaths, and anxiously waiting to press the magic button which would kick start the most exciting adventure in learning that any of them had probably ever had!The hour was upon them, and Luke took up the mantle as chief button pusher. 5,4,3,2,1 and ping, we were live! Ok, so who are we kidding. It was all programmed to automatically release at 9am. The wait was, nonetheless, palpable.


The morning progressed, with a steady flow of participants arriving. By lunchtime, the discussion forums were bustling with people introducing themselves and in some cases reading and replying to each other. The cross-pollination was already in full swing. There was a loud cheer when our first video post came in. A magical moment for everyone I think - like a second moon landing really.

It was clear from the beginning that we’d chosen a subject here which was very popular and on which there was no shortage of opinions, hopes and ideas. A "we want to make the world a better place" mentality was emerging as people described what they felt a sustainable diet was and how it might be achieved.

So, can we save the world?

Well, not single handedly, but with a group of enthusiastic participants like the ones we have on this MOOC, we can certainly give it damn good go! From some of the introduction posts we read it was clear that there was significant diversity amongst our participants in terms of backgrounds and knowledge bases. We have been joined by academics with specialist knowledge relating to key sustainability issues and working on current projects exploring sustainability in different areas relating to food; we also have a number of grass roots project participants, with a wealth of experience in engaging with people in local communities on food issues. Combined with this, there a number of you who are taking the course for professional and personal reasons, and this is wonderful!

And now for the week in numbers...

During this first week, the MOOC received 468 discussion board posts (with the anticipation that with the weekend still to come, this may rise significantly before week 1 starts). These posts were mainly based around the introduction activity whereby MOOCsters were invited to introduce themselves, explain what they felt a “sustainable diet” meant to them and to read and respond to any of their peers’ posts.

We also received 146 unique blog posts in the MOOCsters blog groups (which were limited to approximately 50-55 members in each). These included some exciting video blog posts which we’re keen to encourage people to do over this 5 week course.

Finally, we received a large amount of tweets using the #dietsmooc hashtag. For this induction week, these tweets were again mainly people announcing their arrival via social media but also some tweeters giving early indications of what they thought about the course so far or their hopes for the coming weeks.

How are our MOOCsters interacting with the MOOC so far?

Coursesites' reporting tool is great for quickly spitting out some really useful data on course access. As expected, the majority of activity (58.2% ) in the first week has focussed on the course-wide discussion board. There was also a fair amount of activity on the content (18.9%) and then the group blogs (18.9%)

Which tools are being used?

We've also been able to see a break-down of when the participants are logging on to access our MOOC. As we can see below, the majority of access happens between 8am and 9pm British Standard Time.

When are MOOCsters accessing the course?

So far, so good then?

To sum up, we are thrilled with how our introductory week has gone, but if we said we weren't still holding our breath on a number of fronts we would be telling fibs! Will the technology continue to support us and our participants for the duration of the course? Can we keep such a diverse mix of MOOCsters interested and engaged till the end? How will our live discussion webinars go? The answer may be blowing in the wind, but if you tune in for our next post, we're hoping to have caught it and be in a position to share it with you.......

Angie Clonan and Luke Miller

ScHARR MOOC Diaries - Part XIII: Build it and they will come

Build it and they will come...

So, we designed some MOOCs and we marketed them as best we could without the marketing might of platforms such as Coursera. And they did indeed come. But who exactly were 'they'?

Today the first of the ScHARR MOOCs, the Sustainable Healthy Diets MOOC launched and we thought it was about time that we shared some information about who has actually signed for this exciting new journey!

How many?

First of all, numbers. How many did we recruit? Well, approximately 1400 people registered an interest in the Sustainable Healthy Diets MOOC. Of these (at the time of launch this morning) approximately 1000 had fully registered for the course (using the coursesites platform). The discrepancy between these numbers could be due to a number of reasons including:

• an inability to complete the registration process (technical problems perhaps?)
• a change of mind (some participants did contact us to say they would like to drop out or defer due to holidays and so on)
• there is a possibility that the invitations they received were lost (emails can sometimes be marked as spam and removed from users' inboxes)

The fact is without actually surveying people we will never be able to accurately account for this loss of numbers.

When did they sign up?

So, for those that did successfully register, who signed up and when?

The graph below gives an indication of when people were signing up. Notice that there were definitely more signups as the course start date grew nearer. For the Sustainable Healthy Diets course we were averaging 50+ signups per day towards the end.

Signups from Feb - June 2013

Where are they coming from?

After signing up, participants (or MOOCsters as they've affectionately become known within the ScHARR MOOCs team!) were asked to complete an optional online survey gathering some basic demographic data. We received 584 responses for the Sustainable Healthy Diets MOOC.

We asked for:

• Which continent are you from?
• Which country are you form?
• Age?
• Gender?
• How did you hear about us?
• Why did you enrol on this course?

Interestingly. among other things, the results showed a distinct and unexpected gender divide. This may be a reflection of interest in this particular area?

Male: 144, Female:440

We also found that we had managed to recruit from over 61 countries worldwide

Participants 'attending' from over 61 countries

In terms of age, the participants were predominantly young. Could this be related to the fact that this course is online and younger 'digital natives' may be attracted to (or less hesitant about) this mode of delivery?

Spread of ages

How can we keep them?

We know from existing data that MOOCs by their very nature can suffer from a low participation and high drop-out rate. One of our main objectives is to keep participants interested and engaged the whole way through the 5 week course. We're using a range of participative teaching methods to foster and nurture online collaboration and networking. Our weekly live sessions aim to provide participants with unique opportunities to interact with the tutors, subject experts and each other. So whether or not we can keep them, time will tell!

Luke Miller