Exploring co-studied Massive Open Online Course subjects via social network analysis
Published | June 2014 |
Type of work | Short paper |
Journal | International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning Volume 9, Issue 8, Pages 38-41 |
ABSTRACT
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow students to study online courses without requiring previous experience or qualifications. This offers students the freedom to study a wide variety of topics, freed from the curriculum of a degree programme for example; however, it also poses a challenge for students in terms of making connections between individual courses. This paper examines the subjects which students at one MOOC platform (Coursera) choose to study. It uses a social network analysis based approach to create a network graph of co-studied subjects. The resulting network demonstrates a good deal of overlap between different disciplinary areas. Communities are identified within the graph and characterised. The results suggests that MOOC students may not be seeking to replicate degree-style courses in one specialist area, which may have implications for the future moves toward ‘MOOCs for credit’.Keywords | curricula · · MOOC · open education · social network analysis |
ISSN | 1863-0383 |
Refereed | Yes |
Rights | by/3.0/at |
URL | http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v9i8.3581 |
Export options | BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar |
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