Drive-x: a collaborative model for making MOOCS

Abstract

In 2019, estimations were made that roughly 12.000 online courses are accessible to learners on the largest Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms enabling cross-comparison of MOOCs. Research establishes that the instructional quality in MOOCs is low, meaning there is a demand for innovative approaches and improvement in the quality in digital pedagogies. In contrast, research on learning design is limited in the MOOC research literature, offering few approaches on design principles and strategies that course designers can use. That said, this paper outlines an approach that addresses this particular design challenge. The paper reports from the application of a collaborative model for making MOOCs, called DRIVE-X, which was used to make an online course, ‘Preserving Norwegian Stave churches’. The MOOC runs on FutureLearn and is the result of a collaborative partnership between an academic community specializing in digitalization of education, NTNU DRIVE, and a government agency, the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage. The use of DRIVE-X contributes to devise various learning design principles to create active learning in MOOCs and builds an understanding for social learning and MOOC pedagogy among the participants.