#CALRG14 The OpenupEd quality label: benchmarks for #MOOC, by Jon Rosewell

In his Jon Rosewell's talk on the OpenupEd quality label: benchmarks for MOOCs, he covers some reasons and practical benchmarks currently used to assess quality in MOOCs that are on the OpenupED EU MOOC platform. (nice sidenote: the first EU MOOCs rolled out on the platform did not go through the complete process, as people wanted to get the MOOC out there, and they came from institutions with strong quality assessment in their set up).

Learners have a variety of ideas on what it is to follow a MOOC, which results in mixed emotions in terms of usefulness of the MOOC they followed.

So why bother with quality?

• Students: know what they are committing to
• Employers: recognizing content and skills
• Authors: personal reputation, glow of success
• Institutions: brand reputation
• Funders: philanthropic, venture caps

Other issues of quality
Reported completion may be very low (1 – 10%)
Does that matter? With very large starting numbers, there are still many learnes copleting and maybe learners achieve personal goals even if they do not complete.
Can MOOCs encourage access to HE if >90% have an experience which is a failure (note from myself: the same can be said about any institutionalized education, many young pupils are unhappy with education as well, so what is new?).

Often MOOCs come out of HE at this point in time, which means the approval pattern of these moocs are related to Quality assurance linked to the university that wants to roll them out. User recommendation is also coming into the evaluation of a MOOC.

OpenedUP benchmarks: benchmarking as an improvement tool:

• Quality enhancement
• Identification of weaknesses and strengths
• Action plan for improvement
• It is not expected that every institution will achieve every benchmark or feature

more benchmarks OpenUpEd in slidedeck.

How to benchmark quality in MOOCs - the OpenupEd label from Jon Rosewell