Open your course to the world! Build a MOOC on a Budget

Despite the high costs reported by the most visible providers of MOOCs (Hollands and Devayani, 2014), there is strong evidence that they can be produced at much lower costs and still be effective. Many believe that the high... [ view full abstract ]

Despite the high costs reported by the most visible providers of MOOCs (Hollands and Devayani, 2014), there is strong evidence that they can be produced at much lower costs and still be effective. Many believe that the high production values (and associated costs) of the high profile MOOCs are not necessary for the development of educationally effective MOOCs (Mulligan, 2014).The Erasmus+ funded LoCoMoTion Project was initiated by five European higher education institutions to investigate and disseminate information on low-cost methodologies for MOOC production. To achieve this, the project has set up a dissemination website, a community of practice, and, of course, a MOOC, to teach people who have limited access to resources, how to build a MOOC. The Moocs4all MOOC, is a project based MOOC that brings participants through the steps of building a MOOC, providing them with the information they need to select teaching strategies for large scale enrolment, select tools for hosting and content creation, source suitable free content, rapidly create new content, stimulate peer interaction and carry out assessment at scale. This project is aimed at teachers and lecturers who may wish to open their courses to the world, or possibly just create online resources to “flip” their classrooms or share with others. It will not only provide them with the information they need to build it, but also a community of peers and tutors to support them as they build it.

Hollands, F. and Devayani, T. 2014. “Resource requirements and Cost for Developing and Delivering MOOCs.” 2014. IRRODL Journal Vol. 5 No. 5. http://goo.gl/7JPiRX

Mulligan, B., "Opening up higher education through a low-cost MOOC model", EMOOCs 2014, European MOOCs Stakeholders Summit, Lausanne, Switzerland, 10-12 February, 2014 https://goo.gl/OoDCCz

Keywords: MOOC, open learning