Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 1, Spring 2014 | Page 55

Internet Learning
that produce a student body more homogenous
in their preparation for learning. In
courses offered at large scale and that are
open to an audience diverse in experiences,
skills, abilities and disabilities, orientation
to learning, and even language, it becomes
especially critical to have a course designed
to provide the communication and guidance
to the learner that the course instructor
can’t otherwise offer at scale. Clarity and
specificity in objectives, the communication
of learner expectations, and guidance
about how to get help or support become
critical in a learning structure where the responsibility
for completion and achieving
learning outcomes rests almost solely on
the learner.
To insure that the components of
the course are clearly aligned with its purpose
and objectives, many institutions rely
on the Quality Matters RubricTM to guide
development and to evaluate the quality of
instructional design. Quality Matters (QM)
has a version of its rubric developed for use
with courses like MOOCs. The QM Continuing
and Professional Education Rubric
(CPE Rubric) is intended for the design and
evaluation of online and blended courses
– facilitated, mentored, or self-managed –
that may have pass/fail, skills-based, or other
completion or certification criteria but
that do not carry academic credit. Courses
to which it applies may be either instructor
led or self-paced; either way, they must be
structured and have completion criteria.
The QM CPE Rubric differs from
the QM Higher Education Rubric in a number
of ways that make it more appropriate
for courses that do not bear academic credit.
With the CPE Rubric, courses can meet
standards without active instructor facilitation
and without direct student-to-student
contact. There are reduced expectations
of institutional support but greater expectations
for enriched student-to-content
interaction and requirements for clear descriptions
of resources available to the continuing
education student.
To date, QM has reviewed little
more than a dozen MOOCs and, of these,
only a few have met the CPE Rubric standards.
Although the educational content of
these MOOCs was very strong, it was clear
that much less attention is being paid to the
instructional design considerations that
may be most important for such open enrollment
courses offered at a scale outside
of degree and credit-bearing programs.
Such design considerations as effectively
orienting the learner to the purpose and
structure of the course and communicating
resources and expectations are critical for
learners who are not otherwise connected
to the academic institution and have no
other recourse to gain such information.
The instructional design of MOOCs must
be strong enough for students to be self-reliant
and must be so well aligned with the
purpose, objectives, and audience that students
can succeed with the limited faculty
interaction that has thus far defined the
MOOC experience.
Because of the necessity for such
strong alignment, the context of the MOOC
is critical for its design. Placing MOOCs
within the appropriate theoretical framework
is one broad way to understand context.
Explicitly identifying MOOCs by purpose
and audience might be another. This
paper will look at both perspectives, first
laying out a theoretical framework to identify
significant differences in approaches
and then presenting a set of case studies to
examine in detail the association between
the purpose and audience of particular
MOOCs, design considerations, and outcomes.
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