This presentation introduces a recent study of me. It reviews a total of 84 publications between 2008 and 2016 and provides a new definition of massive open online course.

1. Concept of Massive Open
Online Course:
Expand the Horizon of the Visible
Jingjing Lin
Università della Svizzera italiana

2. What is the problem?
USI http://bit.ly/2fksJMh
Hype Cycle For Education, 2016

3. What is the problem?
USI http://bit.ly/2eJrSIW
MOOC is a girl
dressed like me.MOOC is a man
tough like me.

4. Why is it so hard to define “MOOC”?
• Proliferation of platforms
• Diversity of MOOCs
• An emerging field with the futuristic trend
USI

5. Why is it needed to define MOOC?
• Prior to a careful scientific research plan, it is critical to define the
involved concepts so that “a system of propositions capable of
explaining a finite amount of phenomena” (McLeod & Pan, 2005,
p.26) can be developed.
• A concept is defined as “abstractions communicated by words or
other signs that refer to common properties among phenomena”
(Singleton Jr & Straits, 1999, p.554).
• The effort to define MOOC as a trendy concept will benefit both
research and practice fields by proposing a better understanding
of the concept into its essence, characteristics, propositions, and
other core values.
USI

6. Highlights of this study
• A review of 84 publications (2008-2016) and use inductive content
analysis to investigate the MOOC definition discussed within them
• Tree of MOOC definition discussions (5 generic themes and 16 sub-
categories)
• Definitions of MOOCs are mainly discussed in the literature in 5 generic
themes:
• Overall role of MOOC
• Massive
• Open
• Online
• Course
• Proposed definition of MOOC by this study
USI

7. Research purposes
(1) Identify and compare the definitions of MOOC in the
literature
(2) Propose a tentative concept of MOOC based on the
results of content analysis of existing MOOC
definitions.
USI

8. Literature review
Divided in three parts:
• Antecedents of MOOC
• cMOOC, xMOOC and MOOC alike
• Pioneers’ ideas of MOOC
USI

9. USI Table 1. Intertwined development of distance education and technologies

10. USI

11. USI

12. USI

13. USI

14. USI Fig. 1. A hierarchy of MOOC and its ancestors

15. USI

16. It is a course, open, participatory,
distributed, and supporting life-
long networked learning.
Dave Cormier
2008

17. MOOC is related to the big data
to provide learning analytics, and
global class with international
participants.
Bryan Alexander
2008

18. It is a phenomenon with social
networks, expert, online open
access resources, mass number
of students, self-organized
participation, no fees, no
prerequisite.
George Siemens
2008
CCK
08
2,200
participants

19. USI
Methodology
Purposefully sampled a total
of 84 literature items from
ScienceDirect, Wiley Online
Library, ProQuest sociology
database, Google Scholar.

20. Word frequency analysis
USI

21. Inductive content analysis
USI
1. Open coding 2. Coding sheet
3. Grouping
4. Categorization & Abstraction

22. Results and discussions
Generic category # of Sub-category
Overall role of MOOC 6
Massive 2
Open 3
Online 2
Course 3
USI

23. USIFig. 4. MOOC concept tree grounded in 84 literature

24. MOOC definition proposed by this study
The Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a medium
of distance education mainly achieved by self-regulated
learning and social interaction, initiated from the effort of
open education, with the support of diversified digital
media, internet, and personal electronic devices to reach
the purpose of global mass education for free.
USI

25. Massive
“massive” is considered more as a term that is
purpose-driven rather than result-driven. It
conveys the trendy educational purpose of
cultivating the global mass education to
encourage life-long learning among people.
USI

26. Open
“open” represents the scope of open education,
which aims to break the barriers set by time,
space, copyright, technology, formal
prerequisites, etc. It is part of the open
movement.
USI

27. Online
It is a whole idea of digitalizing the contents and sharing
them via internet to different receivers enabled by
various device types.
(1) the digital media, which is created, viewed, distributed, modified
and preserved on digital electronics devices
(2) the internet or web, which is the global computer network to link
multiple devices worldwide
(3) the personal electronic devices, including computer, laptop,
mobile device (such as mobile phone and touch pad).
USI

28. Course
“course” becomes a term to describe MOOC as
a newly developed delivery method of distance
education, which to some degree still holds the
shape of regular in presence course. However, it
emphasizes the importance of self-regulated
learning and social interactions in the
achievement of this educational delivery format.
USI

29. Conclusion
• This study reviewed the literature to search for MOOC concept
discussions and conducted inductive content analysis in them
to abstract patterned ideas behind such discussions.
• The tree of the MOOC concept discussions in the literature
formulated the ground for the definition proposed in this study.
• It can provide researchers, practitioners, and policy makers
with a common understanding on the background, history,
development, and in particular the provisional definition of
the Massive Open Online Course to guide the ongoing
development of this research field.
USI

30. Limitations
• All the literature items are in English only.
• The timeframe for conducting this study is
restricted to a certain short period.
• The sampling method has ensured a quite
extensive coverage of relevant literature;
however, it still cannot encompass all.
USI

31. Future work
• More review work can be conducted in the publications of
different languages other than English.
• The purposeful sampling technique is applied based on the
limited resources provided by USI library, which may be applied
to a bigger online database to get a more inclusive results of
publications.
• Multiple coders are suggested to avoid possible subjectivity in the
research and increase the coherence of coding when using the
inductive content analysis.
USI