This presentation covers 2 University of Southampton Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCS) that are delivered via FutureLearn.

In the presentation and accompanying video, we examine some of the impacts on teams that have been directly involved in development and delivery of the MOOCs. We will also discuss potential impacts on staff not directly involved in the MOOC and for the Faculties as an Institutional department.

Exploring our Oceans (Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences) is a 6 week course with an emphasis on deep ocean exploration. It covers history,physical oceanography, biology, chemistry, technology, stewardship and human impacts, and is currently in its third run over an 18 month period.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/exploring-our-oceans

Shipwrecks and submerged worlds (Faculty of Humanities) is a 4 week course which covers the history, technology and case studies of maritime archaeology. Two runs have gone live over the last 12 months, with a third run planned for later this year.

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/shipwrecks/3

The courses are broadly linked by a maritime theme and there is a degree of overlap between staff working in both Faculties although they worked on separate MOOCS.

Both MOOC teams intend to embed mooc resources into aspects of campus-based courses as additional materials.

This is achieved either by encouraging students to do the MOOC itself or by taking resources (eg videos) that have been developed for the MOOC and putting them in accessible locations, youtube, linked from VLE, open steps in FutureLearn.

Oceans staff talked about MOOCs as being useful for communicating with large groups of students, but still thinking of a MOOC as a whole package, rather than discrete practices to be applied elsewhere (ie in the VLE).

When we discuss multimedia shortly, we will see how it could have a positive impact on the students.

This video accompanies the next few slides and includes accounts from academic teams involved in the MOOC we discuss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW36hacic3E

Individual and Institutional learning has been derived from the MOOC development and delivery.

In the case of Shipwrecks, the weekly staff meeting that took place during the live MOOC created opportunities for collaborations/conversations that that didn't otherwise happen, with new research spin-offs as a result.

Staff and facilitators were given training in how to managing their digital identities (including use of social media). Peer learning (from colleagues with established online presence) has also taken place.

Some staff now use Scoopit and Twitter for research/professional purposes, developing new forms of personal learning networks.

Facilitators (particularly early career researchers) are able to hone their public engagement skills, and tell us that being a facilitator has increased their confidence in their own knowledge and abilities.

As we will see in the next video excerpt, staff have greater awareness about, and skills in, creating/using multimedia for teaching.

Staff are more aware of existing resources - the good, the bad and the ugly are already out there and being used by students. As a result some staff are changing their viewpoint about where students access information (and would rather put the resources where the students go, e.g. youtube, rather than making them to go somewhere else, e,g the university VLE).

Staff are more aware of good practice to follow in, and the challenges of, using and reusing resources (open access journals, copyright creative commons etc). Often an awareness of the challenges acts as encouragement for staff to creating their own resources eg photo/video.

Staff recognise how multimedia can help to explain difficult key concepts that students might struggle with. They are more aware of the range of interactive online tools available to them e.g padlet, thinglink and how those tools might be applied.

We have looked at how mooc involvement has contributed to individual professional development and institutional learning. As well as embedding MOOC resources, the faculties are exploring new MOOC opportunities.

We have seen how staff can gain skills and confidence in developing richer learning experiences by creating and sourcing multimedia for moocs.

But...

even those directly involved in development and delivery of the MOOCs might not consider all of the potential for changing traditional teaching without further support...

Next steps:

PhD candidate Manuel Leon Urrutia is researching impacts on stakeholders in institutions @mleonurr for more information.

We will be working with the academic teams and other faculty staff to disseminate practice and resources.

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