Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) sind in den letzten Jahren in aller Munde, wenn es darum geht, technologiegestütztes Lernen für große Zielgruppen zu verwirklichen. MOOCs bieten dabei kostenlose Bildung mit offenem Zugang an, sowohl für die breite Öffentlichkeit als auch für spezielle Zielgruppen (z.B. Weiterbildung). Die in den Medien diskutierte Absprungrate (Drop-Out) führte zu einer notwendigen Reflexion über Vor- und Nachteile dieses Verfahrens. Die Autor_innen dieses Beitrags schlagen daher einen neuen pädagogischen Ansatz vor: Der Online-Kurs (MOOC) soll durch Präsenzunterricht ergänzt werden, um den sozialen Prozess des Lernens gezielt zu unterstützen. Während die Anreicherung von Präsenzveranstaltungen mit Online- Anteilen als „Blended Learning“ beschrieben wird, wird die Anreicherung von reinem Online-Lernen durch Präsenzangebote als „Inverse Blended Learning“ bezeichnet. Im Beitrag wird ein MOOC für Erwachsenenbildner_innen, der durch Präsenzangebote erweitert wurde, als Fallstudie vorgestellt. Aus den Daten der Nutzer_innen und ihren Aktivitäten kann mit Hilfe von Verfahren des Learning Analytics Rückschlüsse gezogen werden. Dabei zeigt sich in diesem Beispiel, dass – vermutlich durch das große Angebot und die starke Nutzung von Begleitangeboten zum MOOC – mit 48,2 Prozent eine sehr hohe Zertifizierungsquote (N=3.064 registrierte Nutzer_ innen) erreicht werden konnte. Zudem wird eine Verbesserung der Interaktion zwischen den Teilnehmenden auf der MOOC-Plattform als auch in den zugehörigen Diskussionsforen beobachtet.@en

This paper explores the confidence starting first-year engineering students have in being successful in the first study year and which study-related behaviour they believe to be important to this end. Additionally, this paper studies which feedback these students would like to receive and compares it with the experiences of second-year students regarding feedback. To this end, two questionnaires were executed: one within three European higher education institutes with freshman engineering students and one with second-year engineering students in one institute. The results show that starting first-year engineering students are confident regarding their study success. This confidence is, however, higher than the observed first-year students’ success. Not surprisingly, the students have good intentions and believe that most academic activities are important for student success. When students look back on their first year, their beliefs in the importance of these activities have strongly decreased, especially for preparing classes and following communication through email and the virtual learning environment. First-year students expect feedback regarding their academic performance and engagement. They expect that this feedback primarily focuses on the impact of their future study pathway rather than on comparison to peer students. Second-year students indicate that the amount of feedback they receive could be improved, but agree with the first-year students that comparative feedback is less important. @en

In recent years, massive open online courses (MOOCs) led the road into a new era of learning environment systems. Since 2008, e-Learning witnessed a new type of course which is massive in student numbers, open for anyone, and available for all without limitations. MOOCs integrate social networking, accessible online resources, and open-ended outcomes and are publicly shared. In addition, MOOCs offer several online variables that allow researchers from analytical disciplines (learning analytics) to translate these variable data values into research actions and interpret patterns. In this chapter, we present a detailed analysis of a MOOC case study offered in the previous 2 years, 2015 and 2016. The Graz University of Technology, the University of Graz, and partners from the Medical University of Graz collaborated on a project producing a MOOC called “Dr. Internet.” This MOOC aims to investigate whether the Internet helps or hurts in the endeavor to increase health literacy of the public and how it affects the practitioner-patient relationship. Nevertheless, the research study in this chapter is looking onto a different point of view. We will follow a quantitative investigation and apply learning analytics techniques on learners’ behavior as well as scrutinize traces they left behind in videos, discussion forums, and quizzes. In addition, we try to further inspect the dropout rate and level of engagement. It can be outlined that the early analysis results show that those MOOCs behaved similar to other studies but they differ in the higher number of reads in the discussion forum. Reasonable didactical interventions assisted to change learners’ attitudes toward online learning. This chapter will also describe the didactical approach of the Dr. Internet MOOCs.@en

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been a hype in technology enhanced learning systems the last couple of years. The promises behind MOOCs stand on delivering free and open education to the public, as well as training a large criterion of students. However, MOOCs clashes severely with students dropout which by then forced educationalists to deeply think of MOOCs effectivity from all angles. As a result, the authors of this paper propose a pedagogical idea that strongly depends on injecting the online learning (MOOC) with face-to-face sessions to refresh the students minds as well as integrating them in the real learning process. The authors after that analyze the results of their experiment using Learning Analytics. The outcomes have shown a new record of certification ratio (35.4%), an improvement of student interaction in the MOOC platform, and a manifest in social interaction in the MOOC discussion forum.@en

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) require students’ motivation either intrinsically or extrinsically to complete any of its courses. Even though MOOCs enjoy great popularity and bring many benefits to the educational community, some concerns arise with MOOC advancement. In fact, MOOCs are affected by low completion rate and face issues with respect to interactivity and student engagement along MOOC duration, which may convert student excitement to boredom and then drop out at any stage. A key result of research in the past couple of years has proved that students’ engagement in MOOCs is strongly related to their activities online. These activities are related to the interaction between student and logging in the MOOC, reading and writing in the MOOC discussion forum, watching videos and doing quizzes. In this research paper, we present our research in deploying a gamification mechanic in MOOCs to increase student engagement. The gamification approach relies on weekly feedback to drive student intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Following learning analytics on students’ data from a MOOC offered in 2014, 2015, and 2016, the outcome of this approach showed an obvious increase in students’ activity and engagement in discussion forums, login frequency and quiz trials. The active students’ cohort allotment has increased in comparison with previous versions of the same MOOC as well as the completion rate has incremented up to 26% of the total number of participants. @en

A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is a type of online learning environment that has the potential to increase students' access to education. However, the low completion rates in MOOCs suggest that student engagement and progression in the courses are problematic. Following the increasing adoption of gamification in education, it is possible that gamification can also be effectively adopted in MOOCs to enhance students' motivation and increase completion rates. Yet at present, the extent to which gamification has been examined in MOOCs is not known. Considering the myriad gamification elements that can be adopted in MOOCs (e.g., leaderboards and digital badges), this theoretical research study reviews scholarly publications examining gamification of MOOCs. The main purpose is to provide an overview of studies on gamification in MOOCs, types of research studies, theories applied, gamification elements implemented, methods of implementation, the overall impact of gamification in MOOCs, and the challenges faced by researchers and practitioners when implementing gamification in MOOCs. The results of the literature study indicate that research on gamification in MOOCs is in its early stages. While there are only a handful of empirical research studies, results of the experiments generally showed a positive relation between gamification and student motivation and engagement. It is concluded that there is a need for further studies using educational theories to account for the effects of employing gamification in MOOCs.@en