Massive Open Online Courses - Promoting Engagement Through Means of Gamification
Sharif, Mohamed; Guilland, Auli (2015)
Sharif, Mohamed
Guilland, Auli
IATED
2015
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020121428024
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2020121428024
Tiivistelmä
In recent years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have been sought as one of the means tonbridge the knowledge gap in the world we live in. Within MOOCs, the barriers of time, space, location, and accessibility have been overcome compared to traditional means of learning. MOOCs have taken the education community by storm with their unprecedented high student enrolment numbers. The adoption of well-reputed and well-known academic institutes like Stanford, MIT, Harvard and others persuaded many academic institutes worldwide to jump into this trend. However, when looking at the success of MOOCs, only completion rates were seen as the key success metric to this new pedagogical medium. But many recent academic studies have shown that completion rates are a misleading indicator of the success of a MOOC, due to the fact that learners have different aims and motivations. Some learners come with the aim of updating their professional knowledge to match the market needs, some come with the aim of socializing with like-minded people while others simply enjoy the pleasure of learning and expanding their knowledge on topics they did not know before. The need then arises to go beyond completion rates to gain a clear understanding of the obstacles, problems and issues facing students while learning within MOOCs.
An empirical and exploratory study based on service science was performed on the first and biggest Arabic MOOC platform named RWAQ. The aim of the study was to understand the customer value of the service and promote student engagement in the online learning environment represented by MOOCs to help answer the following questions: How to understand student engagement in MOOCs? How to promote student engagement within MOOCs using gamification? The study was based on service design and gamification methods. This made it possible to gain a fresh look at the learners’ aims, motivations, and needs and resulted in proposing solutions to enhance student engagement. Moreover, creating a collaborative, learner-centric and purposeful learning experience was accomplished.
An empirical and exploratory study based on service science was performed on the first and biggest Arabic MOOC platform named RWAQ. The aim of the study was to understand the customer value of the service and promote student engagement in the online learning environment represented by MOOCs to help answer the following questions: How to understand student engagement in MOOCs? How to promote student engagement within MOOCs using gamification? The study was based on service design and gamification methods. This made it possible to gain a fresh look at the learners’ aims, motivations, and needs and resulted in proposing solutions to enhance student engagement. Moreover, creating a collaborative, learner-centric and purposeful learning experience was accomplished.