A few weeks ago, I completed two MOOCs that ran at the same time and covered similar subject areas (at least at first glance), so I thought I’d ‘compare and contrast’ the two. One was the University of Southampton’s Exploring Our Oceans course on Futurelearn, and Duke University’s Marine Megafauna course, which ran on Coursera. I do have a background in the subject – I did a degree in Marine Biology and Zoology at Bangor University so my aim was to look at the courses from a professional (educational technology) viewpoint while refreshing my knowledge of a subject I love.
Photo credit: Strobilomyces
Although both courses involved the oceans they did focus on different disciplines. Southampton’s course was more of an oceanography course while the marine megafauna course, as the name suggests, used the enigmatic big beasties to draw in and hold the students’ attention. Both courses could be described as xMOOCs although, as Grainne Conole has pointed out recently, there are much more nuanced ways of describing and classifying MOOCs. Any comparisons have to take the platform into account because it isn’t a neutral actor, as we can see in the way video is used on Coursera and assessment is done on Futurelearn.
Who are the students?
The marine megafauna course largely replicates a standard model of undergraduate education placed online, and doesn’t seem to assume any existing knowledge, although with a background in the subject I might be missing something. The Southampton course also doesn’t assume existing knowledge but here the approach is different with the target demographic that of what I’ll call the ‘curious amateur’. In other words, someone who comes to the subject with curiosity, passion, but who may have little experience of the subject or studying recently. As well as not assuming existing knowledge, Exploring Our Oceans also had material explicitly marked as advanced and optional so that participants could explore a particular area in more depth.
Video. And more video.
Both courses make frequent use of video. Marine Megafauna, like many of the courses on Coursera, uses video as its primary way of delivering content. There were five to eight videos per week, mostly as video lectures with other video clips, simulations, and audio embedded within them. Futurelearn delivers learning materials in a very linear manner so for example, in week three there will be items 3.1, 3.2, etc. Some of these were videos (complete with pdf transcript), but some were text-based where that was more appropriate. And that’s as it should be – video, useful as it is, is not the one medium to ‘rule them all’. In fact, one way that I’ll catch up on a MOOC is to read the video transcript and skip to particular points if I need to any graphics to help with my understanding. Video needs to be appropriate and offer something that the participant can’t get more easily or faster through different media, and for the majority of the time the Exploring our Oceans did that. Production values were high. We saw staff filmed on the quayside, on ships and in labs explaining the issues and the science from authentic environments. Related to this, here’s an example of poor practice with video. I’m enrolled on another Futurelearn MOOC with a single academic as the lead educator. At the start of every video the academic introduces themselves and their academic affiliation as thought we’ve never met them before. It’s week five. There are multiple videos each week – it’s not like we’re going to forget who they are between step 5.2 and step 5.5.
What didn’t I like?
I felt Marine Megafauna was a little heavy on taxonomy initially as we had introductions to each group of animals. Taxonomy is important. For example, the worms that live around hydrothermal vents (and who made appearances on both courses), have moved phylum since I did my degree, and major groupings within the gastropods have also been revised in 2005 and later. I would have preferred an introduction to group X (including taxonomy) followed by exploring that group’s ecology, conservation issues and adaptations to life in the ocean in more detail. You could compare to other groups at that point or have a summary/compare and contrast section later in the course, which would serve as a good synthesis of the course so far. As it was, it felt like we were marking time until we got to the interesting parts, and course retention might have suffered at that point. For the Southampton course, the parts I disliked were outside the control of the staff. Futurelearn uses a commenting system at the bottom of the page, similar to that of blogs, rather than the forums found on other platforms. In one way, that’s good in that it keeps the comments within context, but bad in that it prevents participants from starting their own discussions and searching comments is a non-starter. The other thing I didn’t like about the Southampton course was the assessment, which I’ll come back to later.
What did I like?
In Exploring Our Oceans I liked the range of other activities that we were asked to do. We shared images, planned an expedition, and did a practical. Yes, a real life, who made that mess in the kitchen practical on water masses and stratification using salt and food dye. In Marine Megafauna, I enjoyed the three peer assessments and the fact that scientific papers were an explicit part of each weeks’ activities. We would have between one and three PLoS ONE papers each week, and the material within them was assessed through the weekly quizzes. There were supporting materials for those unused to making sense of journal articles. Exploring Our Oceans did use some journal articles when discussing how new species were described and named, but not as an integral part of the course.
Assessment
This was the area in which I found the biggest difference between the two courses, partly I think due to the different target participants (‘undergraduate-ish’ versus ‘curious amateur’), but largely due to the restrictions of the platform. Marine Megafauna had weekly quizzes with between 20 and 25 multiple choice questions, including questions that (unusually for MOOCs) went beyond factual recall. There were three attempts allowed per quiz with the best result counting. Each quiz contributed 10% to the final course mark. There were also three peer assessments – a Google Earth assignment, a species profile, and a report on a conservation issue for a particular species. The Google Earth assignment was largely quantitative and functioned as the peer marker training for the following two.
Exploring our Oceans had quizzes of five to six multiple choice questions, with three attempts per question and a sliding scale of marks (three marks for a correct answer on the first attempt down to one mark for a correct answer on the last attempt). But this is a platform issue. At a recent conference, someone who had authored Futurelearn quizzes gave their opinion on the process, the polite version of which was “nightmare”. I have seen peer assessment used successfully on other Futurelearn courses so it is possible, but it wasn’t used within this course.
Personally, I preferred the longer assessment for a number of reasons. First, it tests me and gives me a realistic idea of how I’m doing, rather than getting a good mark for remembering something from lecture one and guessing the other four questions. Secondly, more questions means fewer marks per question, so one area of difficulty or confusion doesn’t drag my score down. Thirdly, and regardless of how it contributes to the final course mark, I see it as formative, something to help me. I want to be tested. I want to know that I ‘got it’; I also want to know that my result (formative or not) actually means something and that means rigorous assessments. This may not be the same for everyone and a more rigorous assessment may discourage those participants who only see assessment as summative and lead them to believe that they are ‘failing’ rather than being shown what they need to work on.
Some final thoughts
If I didn’t already know the subject, what would I prefer? I think I’d prefer the approach of Exploring our Oceans but with the assessment of Marine Megafauna, with a clear explanation of why that form of assessment is being used. I really enjoyed both courses so if you’re interested in marine science, then I’d say keep an eye out for their next run.
P.S. Santa? Put one of these on my Christmas list please. Ta.
Toasting Snowflakes 
