Jo-Anne Kelder

'Fit for Purpose': a cohort-centric approach to MOOC design

How do you design a quality massive open online course (MOOC) that will be ‘fit for purpose’? The Understanding Dementia MOOC is an initiative of the University of Tasmania’s Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre (Wicking Centre). It is an outworking of institutional commitment to open education resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP). This paper describes the development of the university’s first MOOC, grounded in a philosophy that open learning design includes the criterion ‘fit for purpose’ and thus explicitly considers: the impetus for attempting a MOOC design; the goal (desired outcomes); the nature of the content; assumed capability thresholds of the intended cohort and; the technical and pedagogical design implications of the cohort’s learning readiness. The development team used a design-based research approach underpinned by an evaluation framework. This paper will discuss the interplay of factors which influenced decision-making, including the nature of expert content (packaged by the development team, translated by students and applied in individual contexts), the intended scope of influence, barriers to access in open learning design, pedagogical commitments including adult learning theory, technological constraints, as well as external stakeholder requirements. The paper concludes with a discussion of the impact of maintaining a clear purpose in making a specific body of knowledge available as open content. In particular, we suggest that considerations of content access are not simply physical or technical, but require tailoring the approach to threshold learning capabilities, as well as providing scaffolded content delivery such that individuals can translate their learning for their own contexts.Resumen¿Cómo se diseña un curso en línea masivo y abierto (MOOC) que sea «adecuado al propósito»? El curso MOOC Understanding Dementia (Comprender la demencia) es una iniciativa del Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre (Wicking Centre) de la Universidad de Tasmania y hace realidad el compromiso de la institución con los recursos educativos abiertos (REA) y las prácticas educativas abiertas (PEA). El presente artículo describe el desarrollo del primer MOOC de esta universidad, basado en la filosofía de que el diseño del aprendizaje abierto debe incluir el criterio de «adecuación al propósito» y, por ende, tener en consideración lo siguiente: el impulso para decidirse a diseñar un MOOC; el objetivo (los resultados deseados); la naturaleza del contenido; los umbrales de capacidad asumida del colectivo de estudiantes; y las implicaciones en el diseño pedagógico y técnico de la predisposición al aprendizaje del colectivo de estudiantes en cuestión. El equipo de desarrollo del proyecto utilizó un enfoque de investigación basado en el diseño y apoyado en un marco de evaluación. Este artículo analiza la interacción de los factores que influyeron en la toma de decisiones, como la naturaleza del contenido experto (recopilado por el equipo de desarrollo, traducido por los estudiantes y aplicado a contextos individuales), el ámbito de influencia perseguido, las barreras al acceso en el diseño del aprendizaje abierto, los compromisos pedagógicos (incluida la teoría del aprendizaje de adultos), las limitaciones tecnológicas, así como los requerimientos de otras partes interesadas externas. El artículo concluye analizando el impacto que supone mantener un propósito claro al poner a disposición un cuerpo específico de conocimientos como contenido abierto. En particular, los autores sugieren que las consideraciones relativas al acceso a los contenidos no son simplemente físicas o técnicas, sino que es necesario adaptarlos a las capacidades de aprendizaje umbral, además de proporcionar una provisión de contenidos con apoyo escalonado de modo que los individuos puedan trasladar el aprendizaje a su propio contexto.

Information grounds and micro information seeking: unpacking the complexities of community education and recruitment in breast screening service delivery

Public health education is an important part of national health systems that is intended to have a positive impact on the health behaviours of citizens and prevent health problems developing that require costly interactions with the acute health care system. In this paper we report findings from a twelve month ethnographic case study that collected observation, document/artefact and semi-structured interview data related to the information activities involved in community education work, specifically the targeted delivery of breast cancer information to relevant parts of a demographically defined community. We applied Leckie et als (1996) model of the information behavior of professionals to highlight specific characteristics of different tasks and environments involved in professional breast cancer information delivery. The two main contributions of the paper are 1. an analysis of the way information grounds are both sought and leveraged in order to distribute information in breast cancer information delivery, and 2. the importance of (and understanding of) micro-information seeking in leveraging information grounds.

Engaging in the ‘course efficiency’ discussion: national drivers and local responses

Abstract This article presents a method to evaluate undergraduate and postgraduate course teaching efficiency systematically, alongside measuring effectiveness of curriculum content and delivery. We argue that efficiency is aligned to cost and revenue while effectiveness is a quality-related construct. These potentially antagonistic elements – cost, revenue and quality – must be kept in balance if courses are to be attractive to students (high quality) and financially viable. Curriculum data collection and analysis spanned micro (unit), meso (course) and macro (faculty) level. Revenue data consisted of annual teaching student enrolment numbers by unit of study, aggregated to course level. Cost data included academic and administrative staff costs, and student professional experience placement expenditure. A teaching revenue to cost of delivery ratio metric and course quality score metric were developed to enable comparisons of units and course performance. Over time, these metrics, when utilised together, could be used to determine the impact of quality improvement interventions on teaching cost and revenue and vice versa. We argue that this approach supports strategic planning and actions to improve both efficiency and effectiveness of units and courses, without negatively affecting quality.

An Information Ecology Structured by a Nexus between Accreditation and Practice: Boundary Objects, Brokers and Translation across the Boundaries of Standards Compliance and Practice-Oriented Work

BreastScreen Tasmania (BST) is a health service organisation with a complex information ecology dominated by information integration and work practice standardization embodied in the client record. The client record is oriented to provide evidence of organization-level standards compliance. Client record data is also used to support professional practice specific communication, the coordination of multi- disciplinary breast screening practices and client-specific decision-making. The paper illustrates how the client record is a boundary object structured by a nexus between accreditation and practice. This nexus is the impetus for broker roles and boundary object design efforts to manage the different requirements and meanings of information in BST. The findings highlight how despite the full integration of the information systems design to support accreditation and practice, disjunctions occur that require considerable human activity to coordinate, explain, align and prioritize meanings. These meanings have significant ethical and moral implications for the nature of breast screening services.