I like MOOCs. I’ve taken quite a few, finished some, not
all, and that’s the way it should be. I’m a dropin not a dropout and have grown
weary of sneers from those who see this as a weakness.
This is one MOOC – Web Science’ that I finished and these
are my impressions of the course. I give these, as the ‘voice’ of MOOC learners
is largely absent from the debate, drowned out by the voices of people, who
often, it transpires, have never taken, never mind completed one. This is
something I’ve witnessed at several conferences and it’s pathetic.
Overall impressions
First up, I really enjoyed the course but found it ‘patchy’.
It has its highs and lows. At times it soared, then
suddenly it would dip into the ordinary. You know when you’re engaged, reading
the content in detail, reflecting on the questions, watching the videos and
taking notes (note taking facility would be great – as I often wanted to cut
and paste or write notes and comments). Then, you’d find yourself reading the
transcripts because the videos were a little dull and, at times, shallow - life’s too
short. It needed some serious editing. I did like the ‘Mark as complete’
button, although some of the sections, like introductions to your teachers’ and
the dialogue videos were a waste of time.
Didn’t like the
drip-feed
For the life of me, I don’t see why there’s a slow release
of content. I’d much prefer to have the whole course on tap, asynchronously, to
do when it’s convenient for me. Having taken many MOOCs, this drip-feed thing
is starting to annoy me. The benefits do not outweigh the nuisance value and I
find it slightly patronising – as if you know what’s good for me and will
spoon-feed me like a pet chimp. I think it’s a hangover from the institutional
view that people have to turn up to lectures on a certain day at a certain time
and that courses need to last a term or semester. Don’t copy things that are
bad in the real world over into the online world. The whole point of being
online, is to free learning from the tyranny of time and location. (By the way
this complaint is something I hear time and time again from fellow MOOCers.)
Content
Overall, I enjoyed
it, learnt a lot, but quality often faltered and interactivity was too low.
They could cull a lot in the course to make it better.
WEEK 1: WHAT IS WEB SCIENCE?
This almost put me off doing the rest of the course as, 1) it was badly
presented 2) it didn’t really answer the question. Nevertheless, I persevered.
WEEK 2: NETWORKS
Network properties, numerical analysis, power and influence. This was
excellent and felt like real ‘web science’. It was challenging, informative and
relevant. I felt I could take the knowledge and understand concepts like
‘influence’ better.
WEEK 3: CRIME AND SECURITY
Enjoyed much of this, but a little idiosyncratic and far too focused on
Southampton research students’ work. The case studies were good.
WEEK 4: DEMOCRACY
I found this the weakest of the modules (although the activism bits were
good) as it lacked depth and reference to the excellent work done elsewhere in
academia.
WEEK 5: ECONOMY
The Big Data section was superb but when it came to social media and
business it was shallow.
WEEK 6: WHAT NEXT FOR THE WEB?
OK but at times lacked depth and didn’t really do an adequate job on the
semantic web. Line’s like ‘it sounds like science fiction’ were maddening
(Susan Halford).
At the end I emerged
a bit sceptical about ‘Web Science’. It’s the study of the web, a worthy thing,
but science it is not. It seems like an uneasy fuel mixture of people who want
to adhere to the scientific method, through various grades to much softer
commentary and sociology. I have no problem with the cross-disciplinary approach
but the title may be misleading.
All of this
is the result, perhaps, of not producing an objective ‘course’ but a reflection
of the, often idiosyncratic, research within that department at
Southampton. I really don’t want to hear from yet to be completed research from
postgrads. I want to hear from the best. The lack of a world-class academic and
top-class research was worrying.
Futurelearn platform
Good and bad here. The good news is that it’s clean, crisp
and consistent. However, this is not difficult when the functionality is so
basic. You’re simply moving along a linear set of videos, texts and quizzes.
There’s plenty of opportunity to link out to more detailed resources but it’s a
linear and flat rail-track of resources.
In short, the platform is very thin. I’d
heard all the hype, from Simon Nelson and others, around how the platform was
truly innovative as it had been built on social constructivist principles. This
is just nonsense. Placing chat at the foot of the screen, a sort of
chat/twitter hybrid, comes nowhere near meeting this goal.
Indeed, I found
the chat at the foot of the screen, as in most MOOCs, unstructured and felt
that the time looking for good posts wasn’t worth the effort. I posted a few
things myself but there was no real feeling of intimacy. I can’t for the life
of me see how this is a ‘social constructivist’ platform. I’d much prefer to
have had the opportunity to blog, and find some way to find the ideas and
topics that stimulated me, perhaps really meet and gel with like-minded
learners.
Video
When we had real experts delivering solid theory, I found it
engaging and useful but too often I was listening to a postgrad student rattle
on about their own little piece of research. This I didn’t expect and felt
short-changed. The MOOCs I’ve taken from the US tend to avoid this. I want
professionals, with proven track records and published work, not trainees.
I’d also take note of the EdX research showing that
enthusiasm and a more unscripted, from the heart style, works better than the practiced,
prepared, fifth take stuff. To be fair, this is not easy, as academics and
researchers are rarely great performers.
One thing I have to say is how annoying I found the Wendy
Hall & Nigel Shadbolt dialogue videos. They were unnecessary, usually
shallow and at times banal. Just remove them, as it will make the course
shorter and better.
Text
Overll good, but a lot of this was overwritten, not really
written for the screen and very dry. Get the designers to read Don’t Make Me
Think by Krug – shorter, sharper and edit ‘til it bleeds! It cried out for
images, photographs, diagrams and graphs.
By the way, some links were broken e.g. Module 4 Big data is Dead paper by Tim
O’Brian.
Questions
I found the interactivity, both questions and assignments,
sometimes good, sometimes weak. Six question quizzes are not enough. One
question was just factually wrong. A ‘botnet’ is not a ‘network of computers
that….’ But a ‘network of programs that….’ All of the questions were multiple
choice and there’s no excuse for the schoolboy error of making the longest
answer the correct answer – making it easy to guess or having stupid options
like ‘Digital tattoo’. You could see the variability in quality across the
course. Get a professional interactive designer in the team who can weed out
the weak stuff. What I did find, is that there were far too few inductive and
deductive questions and the platform doesn’t seem to support anything other than
simple, one answer, multiple-choice questions.
300 word assignments, which I submitted and peer reviewed
were too short to do anything worthwhile. There’s also that problem of
differentials between people submitting and reviewing. Needs better, longer and
more challenging assignments.
Summative assessments
Statements of completion or attainment I’m not that bothered
about, as I’m there to learn, not for a piece of paper. A Statement of
Completion will cost £24, €39 or $39 plus postage and packing. Fair enough –
I’d be interested in seeing how many buy. A Statement of Attainment, by sitting a real
exam in a real exam centre will cost £119 and you are directed to Prometric’s
website. What’s missing is online assessment and I’m not sure why ProctorU or
another supplier is not contracted for this middle option. Again, the web is
about convenience and not having web-based assessment seems odd, considering
this was a course about, well, the web!
Conclusion
I’ve been quite critical here but let me end with an
important caveat. I applaud anyone who is moving in this direction, with a
platform and content that is truly open in the sense of being ‘free at the
point of delivery’. This is enlightened and exiting. The points I’ve made are
in the spirit of critical discussion, so that things can move forward and
improvements in quality, pedagogy, length, structure, learning experience and
assessment be found. It’s early days and this is the first iteration of the
platform.
I have been critical of the choice of leader in Futurelearn
(BBC Radio guy) and the approach to the platform build (from scratch with lack
of learning platform people), as well as all the nonsense about ‘social
constructivism’. Sadly, this first pass confirms my views. However, overall, I
enjoyed this MOOC despite, at times, it being a little long-winded. To be fair,
this is probably true of many academic undergraduate courses that are padded
out to fit a term or semester. Some modules were superb, others OK, some below
par. Overall the course was well worth doing – so well done Futurelearn and
well done Southampton.
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