Investigating Asynchronous Interaction Between MOOC Learners Through Forum Use and Peer Review

Abstract

Designers, developers, and educators in an online course, where the risk of learners feeling isolated is of greater concern, should consider including learning activities that engage students with content and with each other in order to promote multiple ways of interaction and communication between learners and higher learners' engagement in the course. Interaction could be developed both in synchronous and asynchronous mode, in a direct or/and indirect (vicarious) way within the e-learning process. This chapter focuses on the development of asynchronous interaction between learners in a MOOC on personal development, provided in 2016 via a popular educational platform and how interaction affected the learning outcomes. The ways that learners asynchronously interact with each other through forum and peer review are identified and research proved that learners interact in a direct and indirect way and that the development of interaction returns multiple benefits to the learning process and outcome.