MOOC on a Budget: Development and Implementation of a Low-cost MOOC at a State University

Abstract

One of the biggest barriers to MOOC development is the large initial cost -sometimes exceeding $100,000 -and the possibility of never recovering that cost through course-related fees. This obstacle prevents many state universities and community colleges from creating their own MOOCs, denying faculty at those institutions the opportunity to help build MOOC content and to gain experience with this new teaching style. This paper presents a successful strategy for primarily undergraduate institutions to create their own MOOCs using local resources at relatively low cost. The authors discuss the development and implementation of Cal Poly Pomona's first MOOC, which was offered for 10 weeks during Spring 2014. The MOOC was an introduction to computer programming course and was open to everyone in the world for free. It was developed in stages over two years at a total cost of approximately $10,000 to the university. Significant savings were achieved by hosting the MOOC on a free platform (Blackboard CourseSites), repurposing existing materials from a hybrid course, hiring student assistants for video production, and utilizing undergraduate student volunteers to help on discussion boards. A total of 2119 participants enrolled in the course with 335 participants (16%) receiving a passing grade. Participants who were still actively engaged in the course by Week 2 had a much higher passing rate of 58%. Discussion boards and surveys provided feedback about the course format, participants' demographics, and participants' attitudes of the course. Most participants possessed at least a bachelor's degree, took the course primarily to enhance job-related skills, and were unaffiliated with the university. Participants' comments about the MOOC were overwhelmingly positive and the MOOC enhanced their attitudes toward the university and subject matter. Based on the success of this first offering, an expanded version of the MOOC will be offered during Spring 2015.

Scaling-up a MOOC at a State University in a Cost-effective Manner

“…In Figure 2, all three curves decay exponentially starting from Week 2, similar to other MOOCs [12,[18][19][20]. It should be noted that one possible reason for the relatively high passing rate is that it was easy to cheat on the unproctored quizzes and on the Final Exam.…”

“…In Spring 2014, the public PUI Cal Poly Pomona developed and delivered a 10-week MOOC as a limited pilot project [12]. The title of the pilot MOOC was "Introduction to VBA/Excel Programming" and in the course participants were taught Microsoft Excel spreadsheet operations and computer programming using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).…”

“…As discussed in Nissenson & Shih (2015), the primary goal of the pilot MOOC was to gain experience in developing and administering an effective MOOC, and to obtain information on how to utilize this form of online teaching to instruct a diverse group of worldwide participants. Additional goals included extending the visibility and reputation of the university, attaining 1000-5000 enrolled participants, achieving completion rates comparable to other MOOCs (~5-10%), and doing so on a limited budget.…”

“…In this paper, the authors provide a detailed discussion of the Spring 2015 MOOC offering, its results, and identifies lessons learned from the effort. This paper, along with Nissenson and Shih (2015), could be used by other public PUIs as a blueprint for developing and delivering their own MOOCs.…”

Design and Development of Online Applied Thermo-Fluid Science Courses

“…This has resulted in a shift from traditional in-class teaching to hybrid or fully online teaching. Also, as the accessibility to Internet increases in the modern age, online education has quickly become a popular pedagogy [1][2][3] . Online course settings not only are able to offset the growing enrollment, they also offer several advantages over the traditional inclass teaching.…”