A research agenda on MOOCS: the perspective of social sciences

Main Article Content

Rosanna De Rosa

Abstract

Originated to help academic institutions innovate pedagogical models, MOOCs are taking different routes, some of them marked by public policies, others by market strategies. Questioning the MOOC phenomenon according only to pedagogies and learning theories means, however, underestimating their impact on the evolution of educational systems. This article intends to define a research agenda into the social impact of MOOCs, in order to reflect on changes in educational policies, on academic culture, and on learning measurement. For this reason we suggest focusing attention on three features of MOOC phenomenology: MOOCs as a social movement - an active policy initiative to promote greater democratization of education; MOOCs as a medium and a cultural artifact (mediated texts, videos, interface, platform functionalities) able to convey learning to distant learners; and, lastly, MOOCs as a measurement - in other words as instrumentation (i.e. learning statements, analytics, algorithms, visualizion tools, dashboards etc.) that allow you to monitor, analyze and optimize the effectiveness of online teaching and learning. We also highlight their limits in these regards.

Article Details

Section
Articles - General topics
Author Biography

Rosanna De Rosa, University of Naples Federico II

Rosanna De Rosa is assistant professor at the University of Naples Federico II where she teaches Public and Political Communication. As an EU project Coordinator, she has been involved in the creation of a pan-European MOOC platform, with a special focus on learning analytics (www.europeanmooces.eu). Among her publications, Cittadini digitali. L’agire politico al tempo dei Social Media (Apogeo 2013), and Governing by data: some considerations on the role of analytics in education (2017), in Lauro C. et al (eds), Data Science and Social Research - Epistemology, Methods, Technology and Applications, Springer.

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