This paper explores the methodological approaches most commonly adopted in the scholarly literature on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), published during the period January 2008-May 2014. In order to identify trends, gaps and criticalities related to the methodological approaches of this emerging field of research, we analysed 60 papers selected across four relevant scientific databases plus one journal in the sector of e-learning that published a special issue on this topic. The emerging picture is that of a research field in its infancy, heavily relying on theoretical research and case studies, which is just beginning to identify suitable methods to deal with large cohorts of learners, very large amounts of data and new ways of learning. The state-of-the-art is also quite fragmentary, due to the different epistemological and ontological conceptions of the authors of the papers about the nature of the issues faced and the way they should be studied. In this paper, we compare the problems related to the definition of the methodological approaches in this research field with the Greek myth of Proteus, the elusive, multiform divinity whose wisdom would only be revealed to those capable of catching him. We therefore advocate the need for catching Proteus, that is, better identifying and choosing the methodological approaches for MOOC research as a condition for its development.

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This article presents a systematic review of the literature on Digital Scholarship, aimed at better understanding the collocation of this research area at the crossroad of several disciplines and strands of research. The authors analysed 45 articles in order to draw a picture of research in this area. In the first phase, the articles were classified, and relevant quantitative and qualitative data were analysed. Results showed that three clear strands of research do exist: Digital Libraries, Networked Scholarship and Digital Humanities. Moreover, researchers involved in this research area tackle the problems related to technological uptake in the scholar's profession from different points of view, and define the field in different Á often complementary Á ways, thus generating the perception of a research area still in need of a unifying vision. In the second phase, authors searched for evidence of the disciplinary contributions and interdisciplinary cohesion of research carried out in this area through the use of bibliometric maps. Results suggest that the area of Digital Scholarship, still in its infancy, is advancing in a rather fragmented way, shaping itself around the above-mentioned strands, each with its own research agenda. However, results from the cross-citation analysis suggest that the Networked Scholarship strand is more cohesive than the others in terms of cross-citations.

Assessing the development of students’ knowledge building discourse is difficult. It would be beneficial to have clear indicators of such discourse to understand if and how it is developing. The aim of this research is to identify indicators that can monitor how the knowledge building process develops during online discussions. In particular, we analyzed university students’ discourse in an online setting oriented to knowledge building. An innovative mixed-method analysis approach was used. First, a qualitative content analysis was conducted to detect students’ discussion strategies; second, an innovative version of Social Network Analysis (SNA), called Strategy Network Analysis was applied to analyze the relations among discursive strategies and to identify the most typical ones. Results showed that the most often used strategies in the knowledge process were “developing hypothesis” and “asking questions or problems of investigation.” These were also the most effective strategies together with “expressing agreement or disagreement.”