From practitioner-producers to knowledge co-creators

An early view of a design-based research project to foster insight generation into MOOCs

Abstract

The University of Adelaide established its MOOC initiative, AdelaideX, in 2014 with goals including generating and sharing insights into effective practice in open online learning. Our professional and teaching staff are amassing valuable experience in conceptualising, designing, developing, delivering and evaluating MOOCs and are part of an emerging knowledge community among MOOC-active universities. In 2016, AdelaideX is running a Creating Insights Project, with the goals of feeding innovation at the University, enabling our people to fulfil aspirations towards capturing and sharing their ideas about MOOC making, and securing rich insights which can be fed formatively into future course and program activities. To do so, we have begun to experiment with a design-based model for practice research. In this way, we are positioning the relationship between academics and professionals as investigative partners, a promising means to develop capacity for insight generation in the open learning space.