Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become increasingly significant in the online learning landscape since 2008. Free with optional for-pay components, and accessible to anyone with internet access, MOOCs provide opportunities for online learning to millions of learners worldwide. Although hailed as the solution to increasing demands for access to higher education, MOOCs are constrained in a number of ways, including an absence of face-to-face interaction, minimal contextualisation of material, and, little lecturer contact and variable participant feedback. To mitigate these drawbacks while taking advantage of free, high quality materials, organisations (universities, NGOs, community groups etc) have “wrapped” MOOCs by including a local facilitator and a face-to-face study group.
Mandated to provide extra curricula support to postgraduate students, the Office of Postgraduate Studies (OPS) at the University of Cape Town operates in a context characterised by limited funding and resourcing, varied student preparedness for postgraduate study, and increasing regional student mobility. This requires substantial extra curricula academic and professional skills support, which is offered through a range of modes including the wrapping of MOOCs on a variety of topics.
This research explored how wrapped MOOC participants experienced the facilitated, face-to-face engagement with online material. A range of primary and secondary data sources were collected and analysed, including interviews, surveys and course evaluations. Using an adaptation of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000), the facilitator, cognitive, and social presences in the face-to-face classroom were analysed.
This study illustrates how the CoI framework can be applied to understand blended learning contexts and the benefits of wrapping MOOCs to address some of their reported limitations. The use of this framework brought into focus the extent to which successful student learning is contingent on the interaction of cognitive, social and facilitator presence in the classroom.
