Collaborative learning can improve the pedagogical effectiveness of MOOCs.Group formation, an essential step in the design of collaborative learning activities, can be challenging in MOOCs given the scale and the wide variety in such contexts. We discuss the need for considering the behaviours of the students in the course to form groups in MOOC contexts, and propose a grouping approach that employs homogeneity in terms of students' engagement in the course. Two grouping strategies with different degrees of homogeneity are derived from this approach, and their impact to form successful groups is examined in a real MOOC context. The grouping criteria were established using student activity logs (e.g., page-views). The role of the timing of grouping was also examined by carrying out the intervention once in the first and once in the second half of the course. The results indicate that in both interventions, the groups formed with a greater degree of homogeneity had higher rates of taskcompletion and peer interactions, Additionally, students from these groups reported higher levels of satisfaction with their group experiences. On the other hand, a consistent improvement of all indicators was observed in the second intervention, since student engagement becomes more stable later in the course.

Despite the success of MOOCs to promote open leaning, they are usually criticized for their high drop-out rates and behaviorist pedagogical approach. Some active learning strategies, such as collaboration and gamification, have shown their potential to overcome some of these problems at low scale. However, the design and implementation of such strategies in MOOCs is still a challenge, which is being studied by several researchers, who tend to focus specially on the enactment of MOOCs. Therefore, there is a need for research studies exploring the design processes of MOOCs including active strategies. In this paper, we describe a co-redesign process in which an economic translation course conceived as a MOOC but finally implemented in Moodle for blended learning, was redesigned to include collaboration and gamification to implement it in Canvas Network (a MOOC platform). During the redesign process we found severe difficulties related to the scale, which were mainly caused by the initial implementation in a typical LMS.

Abstract. Although there is significant evidence regarding benefits of small group collaboration in small-scale contexts, several challenges have been detected about the use of collaborative learning in MOOCs. Group formation, which is a crucial activity in order to achieve effective collaboration, is scarcely covered in MOOC platforms, which do not allow the formation of teams using criteria defined by the instructors. This paper presents an exploratory study conducted in a seven-week MOOC, comparing our group formation proposal, based on students' activity criteria, to a baseline grouping function provided by the platform. We analyse the impact of each grouping approach over group performance, group activity, and student satisfaction. The results show initial evidence about the advantages of using the criteria-based group formation approach regarding student satisfaction and group interactions.

Abstract-Integration of collaborative learning in MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) is an open research challenge.However, team formation and subsequent management are complex tasks that depend on multiple factors, both pedagogical and technological. To fulfill these tasks, it would be helpful to provide teachers with supporting tools. This paper analyzes the factors influencing the formation of teams in MOOCs that can be taken into consideration in the design of this type of supporting tools. The paper presents a proposed classification and illustrates their need and utility by a scenario.