Abstract
<p class="apa">The rapid advancement of emergent learning technologies has led to the introduction of massive open online courses (MOOCs) which offer open-based online learning courses to a large number of students. In line with the advancement, the Malaysia Ministry of Education has recently initiated Malaysia MOOCs via collaboration with four public universities. This paper proposes factors that could be used in development of MOOC learning content, which are: (i) type of MOOC, (ii) type of video lectures, (iii) integration of cultural aspects in video lectures, (iv) communication style in video lectures; and (v) humor effect in video lectures. The paper also proposes factors in developing MOOC learning tasks, namely: (i) structure of learning tasks; (ii) dialog in learning tasks; (iii) learner autonomy in learning tasks; (iv) social settings of learning tasks; and (v) transactional distance of learning tasks. The factors are based on experiences during development of MOOC for ethnic relations and are aligned with learning concepts and strategies such as the transactional distance theory and the theory of the computer model of a sense of humor. Future directions on the development and research on MOOCs are also proposed.</p>
Highlights
In the past few years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emerged as one of the rapid-growing learning environments for online learning
This paper proposes factors that could be used in development of massive open online courses (MOOCs) learning content, which are: (i) type of MOOC, (ii) type of video lectures, (iii) integration of cultural aspects in video lectures, (iv) communication style in video lectures; and (v) humor effect in video lectures
The factors are based on experiences during development of MOOC for ethnic relations and are aligned with learning concepts and strategies such as the transactional distance theory and the theory of the computer model of a sense of humor
Summary
In the past few years, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emerged as one of the rapid-growing learning environments for online learning. MOOCs allow a ‘massive’ number of learners to learn from ‘open-based’ online courses (Kop et al, 2011a; Daniel, 2012). The learning platform has transformed the context of learning in which learners can learn outside the ‘boundaries of learning institutions’ (Kop et al, 2011a; De Witt et al, 2014; Norman et al, 2014). The transactional distance theory is explained and linked to the design of learning tasks in MOOCs. Second, the Malaysian MOOCs initiative is discussed. The discussion is continued with the proposed factors in the development of learning content and tasks for MOOCs based on the MOOC that we developed. The paper is concluded with discussions of the proposed factors and future directions for MOOC development in the Asian context
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