Seizing opportunities: African MOOC takers making time for change

Seizing opportunities:
African MOOC-takers making time for change
Andrew Deacon, Sukaina Walji, Jeff Jawitz, Tasneem Jaffer and Janet Small
Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching
University of Cape Town
HECU 2018
15-16 November
Cape Town

Exploring Higher Education Timescapes

UCT MOOCs portfolio
Education for All:
Disability, Diversity and
Inclusion
Medicine and the
Arts: Humanising
Healthcare
What is a Mind? Extinctions: Past
and Present
Becoming a changemaker:
Introduction to Social
Innovation
Climate Change
Mitigation in
Developing Countries
Understanding
Clinical Research:
Behind the Statistics
Organ Donation:
From Death to Life
Large Marine
Ecosystems: Assessment
and Management
Innovative Finance:
Hacking finance to
change the world
Julia Scientific
Programming
Writing your World

MOOC-Takers Research Project
Understanding how learners living in African countries
make use of MOOCs to transition between work and
learning and between different levels of study
• Challenges faced studying online – access
• Uses made of knowledge & certificates – value
• Moves in and between work and study - transitions

Outline of this Presentation
Context:
UCT MOOC
takers in
Africa
Literature:
Online
learning
and time
Method:
Interviews
with MOOC
completers
Framing:
Enactments
of time
Analysis:
How time is
talked about
for studying
online

Literature
Objective and analytical perspectives
• Surveys and logs – how time correlates with drop-outs
• ‘time management skills’
• ‘lost interest’
Subjective and critical perspectives
• Distance education
• Sheail’s (2018) translocality - how students may experience
being simultaneously situated in more than one place across
physical and online environments
• Adam’s (1998) timescapes - the multiple and interlinked
dimensions of time and space in social life

Continuation over time
‘Understanding Clinical Research’
Enrolments
34,189
Africa: 4,829
14%
Completers
2,450
Africa: 476
19%
First assessments
First videos

Continuation over time
‘Understanding Clinical Research’
34,189
Africa: 4,829
1,096
Africa 149
1,741
Africa: 213
2,450
Africa: 476
Purchased
certificate
All enrolments

Literature
Terms describing experiences of time
• Enactments of time
the way we negotiate to do work in timeous ways
• Construals of time
the way we think about time to interpret the world

Enactments of time
the way we negotiate to do work in timeous ways
• Flexibility - notion of “rigidity” of task completion plans
• Linearity – perception and management of time as continuous
• Pace – time as fast or slow
• Punctuality - matching task completion to a negotiated time
• Delay - tardiness related to work processes or tasks
• Scheduling - how precisely plans are formalized against an
external calendar or clock
• Separation – elimination of extraneous factors during task
completion
Ballard and Seibold (2004)

Interviewing course completers
Interviews are with those who successfully complete MOOCs,
having overcame challenges to make time and get online.
These MOOC completers would have seen how MOOC planforms
seek to offer flexibility around time and access:
‘flexible start dates, adjustable due dates, and easy to use
mobile apps, you can learn when and where you want.’
(Coursera 2018)

24%
Overall Coursera has
5% of enrolments from
Africa (UCT has 16%)
Interviewing course completers
(over 4,000 course completers globally)
76%

Interviews (59)
• Gender – 53% female
• 14 African countries, with 68% South African
• Largest single group (37% of total) where employed and
aged between 25 and 44
• 39 of the 59 interviewed had taken one of three courses
• Becoming a Changemaker (18)
• Understanding Clinical Research (12)
• Climate Change Mitigation (9)

Research question
How do MOOC takers living in African
countries talk about time for studying
online?

Time to study
the ways time is negotiated for study

Time to study
Access - reinforces spatial
positionality as being from a
‘remote area’ and disconnected
Time (separation) - negotiating
time to study has an additional
layer of first downloading the
content
I live in a very remote area ... so I
had to download most of the lectures
first and then when it’s completed
downloading, then that’s when I can
actually listen to the video lecture.
- Thembi (South Africa)
Understanding Clinical Research

Time to study
Time (scheduling) – could not
plan with any precision the
completion of activities
I’m using it when I have free time.
Sometimes at night, sometimes early
morning according to my schedule
and according to the situation of
electricity and net availability.
- Aliya (Libya)

Time to study
Time (flexibility) – has flexibility
and does not see task
completion plans as rigid
I can work till whatever time I want,
when I want, how I want. I want to
add that I absolutely love it, I’ve got
to watch that I don’t become addicted
to it. It’s really... I can lock myself up
my whole weekend.
- Lucy (Botswana)

Time to study
Time (flexibility) – able
to negotiate task
completion plans
Time (pace) - time as
fast paced
it's user-dependent, you kind of can dictate
your schedule and you can watch whenever
you like in your own time.
One of the major challenges that I had was
time, … because you know the course
paced in weeks and then you need to catch
up …. And sometimes I will be caught up in
my job, doing other things and I wouldn’t
have time just to keep pace with that.
- Rustin (South Africa)

Time to study
Time (scheduling) - formalized
plans to continue in the future
... in the next four to five months I’m
concentrating on trying to finish my
PhD degree. Once I’ve finished, I’ll
see how I can actually use it. In fact
I’ve even enrolled or registered as a
mentor on your MOOC platform.
- Patrick (Zambia)
Climate Change Mitigation

Time for tasks
the ways time is spoken about in relation to course tasks

Time for tasks
Time (delay ) – difficulty
related to completing tasks in
time
Yes, I think just time allocation.
Because, you know, when you sit down
to do the presentation, it does give you
some detail of the time, but I think if you
could give more focus on the time that
is required for completing the exercises.
... I think you need to stress that it takes
a lot of time and focus.
- Miranda, South Africa
Innovative Finance

Time for tasks
Time (flexibility) - perceived
rigidity of task completion plans
If I think about my crisis with time,
maybe if there was more flexibility in
being able to do the course over a
longer period of time. But I
understand … it can be like a never
ending thing and that I know there
are reasons why there are deadlines.
- Charlotte (South Africa)
Becoming a Changemaker

Time for tasks
Time (punctuality ) - matching
task completion to a negotiated
time as presented in the course
I thought that it was really well timed.
… The chunks of work were so
manageable, and the time frame was
very manageable, that I did not really
struggle with that. I think the longest I
would have worked on one thing
would have been two or three hours
a week, maybe.
- Anna (South Africa)
Becoming a Changemaker

Deficit model unhelpful (as think piece argues)
• Not simply a lack of time management skills or interest
• MOOC-taker were typically employed and well educated, yet spoke of
being marginalized, seeking change and not easily able to study further
MOOC pedagogy has almost no shared time and space
• Generally positive experience in a low-risk learning space
• Some were very sensitive to expectations of time commitments
Time and change in MOOC pedagogy designs
• Give permission to take initiative and negotiate time
Reflections

Seizing opportunities: African MOOC takers making time for change

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