A low-cost MOOC production workflow for distributed teamsRita Day, Brian Mulligan

Centre for Online Learning, IT SligoEdTEch2015 Conference 2015

What is a MOOC?

“The opportunity to learn about a subject from an expert, in the

company of other interested learners.”

What’s a MOOC? Massive Open Online Course – A model for delivery

learning content online to any person who wants to learn more about a topic

No limit on attendees Geographically diverse Free or reduced cost Variability in structure, content and instruction 1000’s of participants Between specified dates Material, Quizzes, Peer graded assignments

Project outline

A major reservation about Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is that they are extremely expensive to develop and deliver and for most institutions this cannot be justified on a sustainable financial basis.

Intel Ireland have funded research on the development and testing of a methodology for low-cost MOOC production.

The development of four MOOCs in programming aimed at secondary school and vocational students, where the key developers are located outside IT Sligo.

Project Plan In this project Moodle has been used as an

online repository for the learning material; with a quality checking mechanism facility rolled out in a pilot programme from January 2015 and the re-run planned for launch in September 2015.

The pilot will be available to students within the developers sector and through wider participation with open availability to all by a registration process.

Intel Ireland Coding MOOC ProjectFunded by Intel Ireland Objective:

To develop (4) free online courses in coding for young people

Leverage the amount of data in this field Measuring value Quality at low cost

Led by IT Sligo Project Manager, Rita Day

Project Leader, Brian Mulligan Partners

DIFE, DIT, CoderDojo, FIT, SW College

Web Page Development Jessica Matthews, DIFE Drogheda Institute of

Further Education Currently piloting HTML, CSS Available Autumn 2015

Roboslam Frank Duignan, Dublin Institute of Technology https://roboslam.wordpress.com/ Currently piloting Available Autumn 2015 Electronic fundamentals, C programming Requires ordering a kit (€250 / 10 kits)

Multiplayer Online Game Development Noel King, Coder Dojo Javascript, Server programming, Clientside programming,

networking Currently piloting Available Autumn, 2015

Mobile Game Development

Mark Taylor, Fast-track to IT (www.fit.ie) MIT AppInventor Pilot starts 13th April, 2015 Available Autumn, 2015

Globalisation of MOOCs

The globalisation of MOOCs is also being explored as one of the partners has agreed to trial the MOOCs with a Zambian student cohort.

Southwest College - Zambia Further Education – online meets the needs Free education in Africa (MOOC)

Are MOOCs financially viable? The project will review the cost analysis per

developer, resources requirements for developing and delivering MOOCs, the costs of MOOC production and delivery, a time-by-task analysis, the sustainability of MOOCs and the future direction through tracking of post-MOOC longitudinal studies.

Topics include Content Development and Sourcing, Hosting Platforms, Pedagogical Approaches, Communication and Support, Institutional Systems and Services, Assessment and Accreditation.

How much does it cost to record and publish a lecture? Recording set up. –Video –Audio –Screen capture –Etc. •Mixing •Editing •Post-processing •Publishing •Yale: €40k per course

Costs to Develop

Instructors develop their own courses Course development 100+hours Course management 8-10hours per week

Provider services $250,000+ per course $50,000+ every time the course is taught

Free to participants

"Could it be cheaper? - IT Sligo Research" Target audience – young people learning to code

Free platformsLow cost recording toolsOpen Education Resources Instructional brandingQuality and standardisation

LoCoMoTion Project moocs4all.eu How to build low-cost MOOCs MOOC starting June 2015 IT Sligo, Technical U. of Delft, U. of Girona, Fachhochschule

Bielefeld, Bath Spa University

"Could it be cheaper? - IT Sligo Research"

The project aims will investigate:1. How were the students’ experiences in terms of the

course design (e.g. learning materials, activities and teaching support)?

2. How effective was course with regard to students’ learning outcomes?

3. How do the outcomes differ from more expensive MOOCs?

4. What were the costs involved in constructing the MOOCs?

5. How were the instructors’ experiences in terms of the course from production to execution?

Quantification of Developers effort Number of hours in course design (definition of topics and

content) Number of videos per week: Average length of video: Development of videos: Average time to:

plan/design a video: Preparation / assemble materials record video carry out any processing before submission to IT Sligo

Time spent authoring quizzes per week Number of assignments in course Average time writing the assignment

Useful Ideas

Simplify Recommended

standardTemplates & Design

Patterns Workflow Hardware Training (minimal) Support

What is the Challenge?

To maximise quality

To minimise costsTo minimise the

workload skills requiredon the Subject

Matter Expert

Useful Ideas Moderate ambitions Simplify processes – sample lean workflow Recommended standards – templates – course

design, slides, quizzes Minimal training Reliable hardware Responsive support Peer Assessment You Tube as the video platform Alignment of activities to the learning outcomes

Useful ideas continued… Criteria for selection Ease of recording Ease of publishing Scalability Cost of hosting Bandwidth requirements Recording, viewing Publishing options Output quality and formats Navigable recordings

Sample lean work flow

End of Course Survey

Thank you and acknowledgements

Any Questions?

www.itsligo.ie/online