Reflections on Instructional Design Guidelines From the MOOCification of Distance Education: A Case Study of a Course on Design for All

Introduction

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been a turning point in online learning delivery, in some cases being positioned as an alternative to traditional higher education (HE) courses (Yuan & Powell, 2013). It offers teachers, researchers and practitioners the opportunity to experiment with different pedagogies, trying different possibilities using their materials in either face to face or online campus settings, such as in flipped classroom or blended learning approaches (Hoyos et al., 2019; Hill, 2012). The pedagogical and visual design of MOOCs, their information architecture, usability and interaction design, is having a variable impact on learner engagement, retention and completion rates, as previously analyzed in adult learning (Montgomery & Mallette, 2018; Jordan, 2015; Yang et al., 2013; Liyanagunawardena et al., 2014). For instance, Jordan (2015) confirms that completion rates vary significantly, from 0.7% to 52.1%, with an average value of 12.6%, according to course length (longer courses having lower completion rates), start date (recent courses having higher percentage completion) and assessment type (courses using auto-grading having higher completion rates).

Recent innovations in MOOCs include the creation of new educational approaches (both from the pedagogical and technological point of view) that can be used to rethink education, also renewing calls for inclusive education to reach all citizens. Social inclusion can only be obtained by embedding inclusive strategies, leading to targeting and including vulnerable groups, such as people with disabilities, being emphasized (de Waard et al., 2014), although there has been limited progress to date in either producing accessible MOOCs, or tailoring MOOCs to meet individual learners’ needs (Iniesto et al., 2016).

MOOCs are usually developed and delivered as independent online courses, but some pedagogical experiments have been reported by teachers and researchers on how to integrate MOOC into HE (Sandeen, 2013). From being video courseware repositories to dynamically adaptive eLearning models, the MOOC ecosystem has matured significantly leading to a wider taxonomy of MOOCs (as explained originally in the taxonomy of 8 types of MOOC developed by Clark (2013). Transfer MOOCs are created with recordings of existing classroom video lectures and engage learners by different motivating factors (Sooryanarayan & Gupta, 2015). Other researchers wrap formal university courses around existing MOOCs (Koller, 2012; Bruff, 2012; Bruff et al., 2013; Caufield et al., 2013; Holotescu et al. 2014), while some have attempted a different approach, where the participation of learners in different MOOCs was integrated into a blended course run on a social mobile Learning Management System (LMS) (Conole, 2008). More recently, Defaweux et al. (2019) combined a MOOC with a face-to-face course using blended pedagogical patterns.

Integration of MOOCs into HE appears to be converging on content licensing to support hybrid or flipped classes, an incremental change from current practice rather than a fundamental transformation (Sandeen, 2013; Rodrigo et al., 2016). As revealed by Gasevic et al. (2014), the design of MOOCs and their integration into formal curricula was one of the main research themes within the framework of future MOOC research. Gasevic also stated the need to increase efforts towards enhancing multi-disciplinarily. According to Desarathy et al. (2014), MOOCs could enhance crowd-sourcing multi-institutional degrees and competence-based education by improving the quality and personalization of the learner experience.