A Mathemateical journey is going to be a popular OERu offering! Initial reflections
All your comments on the synchronous web conference make sense. I have a Blackboard/Elluminate room, so cost is not a concern. The short podcasts are a great idea. My grad student, Susan Fall, is coming to Saratoga in April to do some podcasts. Our goal is to engage the learners in as many ways as we can.
Perfect :-)
For the prototype offering ESC will use a Blackboard/Elluminate room --- we must just remember when we develop the generic resources that it is designed as an "option" taking into account OERu institutions who many not be able to offer the service. We can easily configure this into the design.
For the prototype offering, does ESC envisage:
- Running the OERu version in parallel with full-tuition students (quite doable with the OERu model ;-))?
- Are you planning to cap the number of OERu learners for the prototype or would you like to run the prototype as a massive open course? (Again - -both options would work well for the prototype -- just good to know in advance for designing the course materials. If you get 500 students signing up for the synchronous session --- you want to be sure the technology and budget can accommodate this. I think Math course has the potential for drawing very large numbers.)
W
I've been thinking about the place of the weekly synchronous sessions and I think it may be cleaner to not highlight them for this course. I still plan to do the weekly sessions, but it may be better to include them as one of the resources, rather than have them as a listed component of this prototype course. (I remvoed that bullet from the blueprint.)
As for providing concurrently in the college for credit, the answer is yes. We have what is called a "Learning Opportunities Inventory" or LOI, for offering studies such as this that are available collegewide.
As for capping, am open to either way. When we did the MOOC, we got a lot of interest, but not many who engaged at a level that would be sufficient to gain college credit. So, I'd be comfortable with leaving the course open, with the expectation that the number moving fully toward the credential will be a workable group.
--BettyHD 14:53, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
Hi Betty,
That's a good suggestion -- i.e. offering the synchronous webcasts as an optional feature. You could easily integrate this with ESC's parallel full-tuition version (LOI) without this being a "requirement" for other OERu partners should they offer the course.
I'd keep this as a bullet point in the blueprint indicating that it is an option.
It would be good to have a few mass open prototypes for the OERu running (I'm thinking about doing the same for the "Why Sustainable Practice" course at Otago Polytechnic.)
When offering the prototype we could cap the number of assessment scholarships for the prototype to a workable number and allocate spaces, for example, on a first-come first-serve basis when learners register. This can be communicated at the OERu registration point and we could ask learners to indicate whether they will be applying for assessment.
It will good for OERu to collect data on the conversion rate of a free learning course to formal assessment. I think learners join MOOCs for a variety of reasons and they may not be representative of the target population an OERu course would attract. It will be interesting to see if the engagement required for college credit will be different in the OERu course environment - -especially for learners who join with the intention of gaining college credit.
Can't wait to see these courses running and to see what the formal assessment conversion rate might be.
