The rapid and constant pace of change in technology and the increasing involvement of educational institutions in the massive online open courses (MOOC) movement elicit a large myriad of opportunities and challenges. One of the main issues is the reported high dropout rate. In this sense, gamification strategies have been proposed as a complement to existing learning approaches providing a powerful and motivational learning experience to students. Examples of gamification strategies for MOOC environments include rewards for learning activities, applying levels and leader-boards to encourage progress and competition, and badges for participation in forums. The aim of this study is to contribute to the analysis of motivational factors to provide improved learning experiences for cloud-based learning services. This paper presents lessons learned from the MOOC course “Authoring tools for e-learning courses”. 1678 participants experienced a mix of gamification strategies: Badges – Leaderboard forums; Students Classifier League and Reward strategy. Findings revealed the reward strategy as the most effective one, and indicated increased motivation to complete the assigned learning activities.

Keywords

gamification · learning engagement · learning strategies · MOOCs · motivation