List

Our paper “What public media reveals about MOOCs: A systematic analysis of news reports” is finally available as online preview at Wiley library. Preprint is also available here.


Abstract One of the striking differences between massive open online courses (MOOCs) and previous innovations in the education technology field is the unprecedented interest and involvement of the general public. As MOOCs address pressing problems in higher education and the broader educational practice, awareness of the general public debate around MOOCs is essential. Understanding the public discourse around MOOCs can provide insights into important social and public problems, thus enabling the MOOC research community to better focus their research endeavors. While there have been some reports looking at the state of the MOOC-related research, the analysis of the public debate surrounding MOOCs is still largely missing.

In this paper, we present the results of a study that looked at the content of the public discourse related to MOOCs. We identified the most important themes and topics in MOOC-related mainstream news reports. Our results indicate that coverage of MOOCs in public media is rapidly decreasing: by the middle of 2014, it decreased by almost 50% from the highest activity during 2013. In addition, the focus of those discussions is also changing. While the majority of discussions during 2012 and 2013 were focused on MOOC providers, the announcements of their partnerships, and million dollar investments, the current focus of MOOC discourse seems to be moving toward more productive topics focused on the overall position of MOOCs in the global educational landscape. Among different topics that this study discovered, government-related issues and the use of data and analytics are some of the topics that seem to be growing in popularity during the first half of 2014.

Share:

  Posts

December 18th, 2017

Computers & Education paper accepted

December 15th, 2017

LAK’18 paper accepted

November 10th, 2017

Internet and Higher Education paper published

September 25th, 2017

RER paper published

September 18th, 2017

LAK17 paper published by Distance Education in China

September 5th, 2017

BLAC paper published

June 5th, 2017

OLJ journal paper accepted

May 22nd, 2017

Chapter published in the Learning Analytics Handbook

May 12th, 2017

L@S’17 poster published

April 26th, 2017

LAK’17 paper published

April 26th, 2017

LAK’17 poster published

April 20th, 2017

WWW’17 paper published

April 10th, 2017

Learning: Research and Practice article published

March 22nd, 2017

Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics article published

February 18th, 2017

SRI Analytics4Learning report published

February 15th, 2017

WWW 2017 paper accepted

February 15th, 2017

L@S17 paper accepted

January 9th, 2017

LWMOOCs’16 proceedings published

December 21st, 2016

Principal’s Teaching Award

December 18th, 2016

LAK17 poster accepted

December 6th, 2016

LAK17 paper accepted

May 18th, 2016

Topic modeling tutorial at LASI’16

March 10th, 2016

Co-chairing the LWMOOCs 2016 program

February 22nd, 2016

“Translating network position into performance: Importance of Centrality in Different Network Configurations” nominated for the LAK’16 best paper award

February 14th, 2016

“Profiling of MOOC Course Returners: How Does Student Behavior Change Between Two Course Enrollments?” accepted for Learning@Scale 2016

December 20th, 2015

Two papers accepted for LAK’16

November 15th, 2015

“MOOCs in the News: A European perspective” presented at the 2015 Home conference in Rome

October 15th, 2015

“Content Analytics: the definition, scope, and an overview of published research” submitted to the Handbook of LA & EDM

Initiated by SOLAR and edited by Charles Lang and George Siemens, the Handbook of Learning Analytics & Educational Data Mining […]

August 30th, 2015

“Structure matters: Adoption of structured classification approach in the context of cognitive presence classification” accepted for AIRS conference

July 9th, 2015

“Recognising learner autonomy: Lessons and reflections from a joint x/c MOOC” won best paper award at HERDSA 2015 conference

July 9th, 2015

“Analytics of communities of inquiry: Effects of learning technology use on cognitive presence in asynchronous online discussions” published at the Internet and Higher Education journal

July 5th, 2015

“Learning at distance: Effects of interaction traces on academic achievement” accepted in Computers & Education journal

June 28th, 2015

Our proposal: “Automated system for cognitive presence coding” awarded JISC funding

June 26th, 2015

“Roles of course facilitators, learners, and technology in the flow of information of a cMOOC” published at IRRODL journal

June 20th, 2015

On board of Learning@Scale organizers

June 17th, 2015

“Does Time-on-task Estimation Matter? Implications on Validity of Learning Analytics Findings” submitted to Journal of Learning Analytics

June 13th, 2015

“Social presence in online discussions as a process predictor of academic performance” published in JCAL

June 8th, 2015

“Analytics of communities of inquiry: Effects of learning technology use on cognitive presence in asynchronous online discussions” accepted for publication at Internet and Higher Education journal

April 30th, 2015

On board of LAK 16 organizing commitee

April 30th, 2015

Preparing for the Digital University: a review of the history and current state of distance, blended, and online learning” report published: Chronicle of Higher Ed coverage

April 30th, 2015

“Recognising learner autonomy: Lessons and reflections from a joint x/c MOOC” accepted for HERDSA conference

April 21st, 2015

“What public media reveals about MOOCs: A systematic analysis of news reports” paper got a lot of attention on social media

April 10th, 2015

“What public media reveals about MOOCs: A systematic analysis of news reports” BJET paper available online

March 24th, 2015

Stephen Downes blog post on our “What do cMOOC participants talk about in Social Media? A Topic Analysis of Discourse in a cMOOC” LAK 2015 paper

March 20th, 2015

“Penetrating the Black Box of Time-on-task Estimation” won best paper award at LAK 2015 conference

March 20th, 2015

Great experience at LAK Topic modeling tutorial

March 4th, 2015

“Analytics of communities of inquiry: Effects of learning technology use on cognitive presence in asynchronous online discussions” submitted to Internet and Higher Education journal

January 26th, 2015

Our paper: “Penetrating the Black Box of Time-on-task Estimation” nominated for a best paper award at LAK 15

December 9th, 2014

Great news! 4 LAK’15 papers accepted

December 8th, 2014

“Learning Analytics for Communities of Inquiry” accepted for publication at Journal of Learning Analytics

November 14th, 2014

“Learning Analytics for Communities of Inquiry” submitted to Journal of Learning Analytics

November 11th, 2014

#dalmooc social network analysis google hangout session

November 8th, 2014

“Topic Modeling for Learning Analytics Researchers” proposal for LAK tutorial accepted

November 1st, 2014

Doctoral consortium at LAK 2015 paper submitted

October 21st, 2014

“What public media reveals about MOOCs” accepted for publication at British Journal of Educational Technology (BJET)

October 15th, 2014

“Topic Modeling for Learning Analytics Researchers” LAK tutorial proposal submitted

October 15th, 2014

Three full papers submitted for LAK 2015

September 30th, 2014

“Where is Research on Massive Open Online Courses Headed? A Data Analysis of the MOOC Research Initiative” IRRODL paper accepted

September 30th, 2014

“Externally-facilitated regulation scaffolding and role assignment to develop cognitive presence in asynchronous online discussions” accepted

May 18th, 2014

“What is the source of social capital? The association between social network position and social presence in communities of inquiry” Paper accepted

March 13th, 2014

“Psychological characteristics in cognitive presence of communities of inquiry: A linguistic analysis of online discussions” paper accepted

March 3rd, 2014

“Automated Content Analysis of Online Discussion Transcripts” paper accepted

April 4th, 2013

Going to LASI 2013

January 15th, 2013

Award