LACE - a MOOC on literature and change in Europe: MOOCs at the MA level in a cross-over with campus teaching

Abstract

Literature and Change in Europe (LACE) is a network of seven institutions providing a common master course on Literature. Each of the partner institutions provide a module to the course, which is followed jointly by students officially enrolled at the respective institutions, collaborating over the web. LACE involves also physical mobility by teachers and students. LACE originally planned to offer the course in a standard OCW format. We went however one step further and offered it as a - truly open - MOOC with OCW content under a CC-BY-SA licence. The stated goals for the university partnership that offers this MOOC were "internationalisation at home": attracting new groups of students to the course from different international backgrounds, more intensive peer activities such as richer forum discussions better spread out over the semester, enhanced exposure of the participating institutions to students outside of the LACE framework, and attracting possible PhD students. The MOOC was squarely targeted at the MA level (corresponding to 6 ECTS), required good knowledge of both English, European Culture and at least one other European Language and a solid introduction into literary theory.

In october 2013 for the first time LACE was launched for the first time as a MOOC on the Canvas.net platform, where it was followed both by the regular, registered students at the participating universities as well as MOOC subscribers. The course provides content using weblectures, articles, course texts and hyperlinks. Peer interaction is organised through assignments and forum discussions. Students who finished the course received a certificate of accomplishment. This pilot aimed to explore the interaction of MOOC subscribers and the regular university students, programmes and facilities. The paper documents the motivations, choices and experiences in setting up the pilot, and presents the results of both a survey at the beginning of the MOOC as well as usage data and student response after having taken the course.

We assess whether the MOOC reached the goals set out by the LACE partnership, and describe our plans for the near future with MOOCs in different languages a MOOC as a preparatory course to enter the MA programme.