All inclusive

MOOCs – ‘Massive Online Open Courses’ – are massive in more ways than one. Massive in terms of participation. Massive in terms of inclusivity. Massive in terms of success. And massive by name. At Southampton, we’re setting the bar high for MOOC success – and reaping the rewards along the way.

MOOCs are all about knowledge sharing – but on a massive scale. Hundreds of thousands of people all around the world have taken part in MOOCs delivered by teams from Southampton – on subjects from all five Faculties – since the first course in 2012.

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. There is no barrier to who can take part, they are open to anyone, and they are delivered online.

The University’s MOOCs are short, focused courses that last between two and eight weeks, with about four hours of learning each week.

Kate Borthwick is Director of Open Online Courses within the University’s Digital Learning team. She said: “There is no cost and no prior knowledge requirement to take part in a MOOC. Many of them are aimed at a particular audience, but there is no prerequisite for joining. So, when you are designing such a course, you need to assume you may get a very large number of participants. You might get one, or you might get 100,000 – there is no limit. Also, as the course is open to anyone, you have to think very carefully about the tone and you cannot assume prior knowledge or prior level of education. You are creating a wonderfully inclusive course.”

The University of Southampton is one of the founding partners of FutureLearn, which set up a MOOC platform in 2013.

“With FutureLearn, we shared a vision of social learning and peer learning,” explained Kate. “The aim with any MOOC is to start a dialogue with the learners and encourage them to interact with it. The courses are very learner-centred – the content is open and the learner is in control of how, and with what, they engage.”

Collaborative creativity Creating a MOOC is a very collaborative process, as recognised earlier this year when the University’s MOOC Programme Team won the Advance HE Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE).

Kate said: “To create a MOOC, an academic and other contributors will collaborate with a member of the Digital Learning team to create a course plan and content. Other staff will be engaged along the way, such as the Media team, the Library, a legal advisor and staff in Marketing. And the MOOC Programme team collaborates with FutureLearn to create the course.”

Collaboration with external partners is also key, and the University was one of the first FutureLearn partners to work with external partners. The MOOC Programme team has worked with the British Council (on Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching); World Commerce and Contracting, and the Civil Service (on Contract Management); Jane Austen House Museum and Chawton House (on Jane Austen: Myth, Reality and Global Celebrity); and the Royal Armouries (on Agincourt 1415: Myth and Reality).

“The final area of collaboration is with students, who are involved in MOOC creation and development opportunities,” added Kate. “Postgraduate students often contribute core content arising from their research and are also involved in facilitating courses. To date, more than 80 postgraduate students have been involved.”

Beyond the MOOC The University is achieving success beyond knowledge exchange and education via MOOCs.

“MOOCs support lots of activities that are important to us as a University,” said Kate. “They engage the public with our research, and they showcase our research. We also know that about 1,600 past and present students have completed a MOOC prior to joining the University, so there is a promotional aspect to them too.”

MOOCs have also led to opportunities for partnerships and collaboration. The biggest MOOC to date – Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching, which has received 260,000 enrolments since it launched in 2014 – is delivered in collaboration with the British Council. This course, and English as a Medium of Instruction for Academics, have led to further opportunities for partnership working and, in some cases, project funding.

As well as developing and reinventing existing MOOCs, new courses are frequently launched. The most recent is Digital Tools for Efficient Clinical Trials, developed in collaboration with the Clinical Trials Unit (CTU) to share the CTU’s recent research into effective digital tools to recruit participants for trials.

MOOCs that are currently in production include Autonomous Shipping, Interfaith Understandings: The meeting of Jewish and non-Jewish worlds, and a MOOC related to the Breccia project, a project focused on strengthening the research capacity in subSaharan African countries to lead to policy and practice change to improve food and water security.

OUR MOOCS IN NUMBERS

21 MOOCs have been created between 2013 and 2021

There have been 903,000 enrolments since 2013

Our MOOCs have reached 233 countries

120 academic staff across all five Faculties have been involved in creating MOOCs

28 per cent of learners are teachers, reflecting the popularity of the three teacher education MOOCs: Understanding Language: Learning and Teaching, Teaching Languages in Primary Schools: Putting Research into Practice, and English as a Medium of Instruction for Academics

MOOC spotlight: English as a Medium of Instruction for Academics One of the University’s longest-running MOOCs is English as a Medium of Instruction for Academics. It has run 13 times since 2017, with about 55,000 participants to date. The course is designed to support educators in higher education who are delivering modules in English when this is not the first language of students, lecturers or the institution.

Dr Robert Baird and Mary Page, Senior Teaching Fellows in the Academic Centre for International Students, lead the course.

Outlining some of the benefits of the MOOC – besides knowledge sharing – Robert said: “We are very fortunate to run this MOOC. We receive direct insights into a range of Englishmedium education contexts, and get a very broad understanding of the people working in the area – their challenges, strategies, and ideas. This gives us far greater awareness and nuanced understanding when engaging with this field as speakers, teacher educators, and course designers.

“It’s also fascinating to see how internationalisation in higher education works in similar and sometimes different ways in different settings, and how different people respond to the growing role of English in their professional lives.

“We have also collaborated with many people beyond the MOOC, and engaged with important conversations and initiatives that we would not have had the opportunity to be part of without it.”

The course has also been successful at generating related enterprise opportunities. For example, it was the core of a successful bid to the British Council to train academics from across the Philippines in English as a medium of instruction. It is also central to a similar British Council project to explore internationalisation with a Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) partner, the Universidad Federale de Minas Gerais, in Brazil.

Participants were surveyed in 2018 and, of 613 respondents, 97.6 per cent reported that they had gained new knowledge, and 71.3 per cent had begun to put it into action.

A wide range of people participate in the MOOC. Robert outlined: “There is a vast range, from people who see an achievement in writing a sentence due to a lack of familiarity with, or confidence in, using English, to firstlanguage speakers who have concerns about managing intercultural and inclusive learning. The challenge is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for such a range of educators with such a range of needs, but we have created a network that has brought people together, and many positive outcomes have grown from that. For example, there is a Facebook group that keeps just under 2,000 MOOC alumnae connected.”

MOOC spotlight: Exploring Our Ocean The Exploring Our Ocean MOOC looks at how deep seas are explored, how ocean circulation and the chemistry of seawater sustain life on Earth, the diversity of habitats and lifeforms in the ocean, and how we are all involved in its future.

The course was originally designed by Dr Jon Copley, Associate Professor in Ocean Exploration and Public Engagement, to engage the general public with research at Southampton. Since 2014, the MOOC has run 19 times – coinciding with Open Days for applicants to degree programmes in Ocean and Earth Science – with almost 60,000 people from 180 countries enrolling.

Jon said: “By engaging people with our research through the MOOC, we have raised awareness of ocean issues and changed people’s perceptions of how our lives affect the ocean, directly generating evidence of impact from our research for a REF2021 Impact Case Study.

“The MOOC showcases our research-led teaching and our links with international partners, and feedback shows that it has been useful in helping applicants to choose Southampton for degree programmes in marine biology and oceanography, and offering an introduction to the subject for students in their transition to university.

“PhD students act as facilitators, answering questions from learners and sharing insights from their own research, so the MOOC provides an opportunity for our early career researchers to develop their public engagement skills.”

For further information, visit: www.southampton.ac.uk/courses/free-online-learning.page