Evaluation of a MOOC pilot

Impacts on pedagogical and technical design and dementia education research

Abstract

This paper presents the evaluation of the pilot of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) called Understanding Dementia. The business case identified potential benefits of: ability to deliver high quality expert knowledge about dementia on an international scale; a dataset for dementia research of international perspectives on dementia care; enhanced reputation of the University and providing a pathway to traditional course for non-traditional students. The development team used a design-based research approach guided by the evaluation-research framework for e-learning and the concept of an 'e-learning life cycle' in (Phillips et al. 2012). The paper describes the evaluation-research design and results for the pilot phase. It shows how data analysis from the pilot informed the pedagogical and technical aspects of the learning design for the first full release and the value of a planned, evaluation research approach informing design from pilot to maturity.