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What public media reveals about MOOC s: A systematic analysis of news reports
Author(s) -
Kovanović Vitomir,
Joksimović Srećko,
Gašević Dragan,
Siemens George,
Hatala Marek
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
british journal of educational technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.79
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1467-8535
pISSN - 0007-1013
DOI - 10.1111/bjet.12277
Subject(s) - mainstream , public relations , government (linguistics) , social media , political science , sociology , massive open online course , pedagogy , philosophy , linguistics , law
Abstract One of the striking differences between massive open online courses ( MOOC s) and previous innovations in the education technology field is the unprecedented interest and involvement of the general public. As MOOC s address pressing problems in higher education and the broader educational practice, awareness of the general public debate around MOOC s is essential. Understanding the public discourse around MOOC s can provide insights into important social and public problems, thus enabling the MOOC research community to better focus their research endeavors. While there have been some reports looking at the state of the MOOC ‐related research, the analysis of the public debate surrounding MOOC s is still largely missing. In this paper, we present the results of a study that looked at the content of the public discourse related to MOOC s. We identified the most important themes and topics in MOOC ‐related mainstream news reports. Our results indicate that coverage of MOOC s in public media is rapidly decreasing: by the middle of 2014, it decreased by almost 50% from the highest activity during 2013. In addition, the focus of those discussions is also changing. While the majority of discussions during 2012 and 2013 were focused on MOOC providers, the announcements of their partnerships, and million dollar investments, the current focus of MOOC discourse seems to be moving toward more productive topics focused on the overall position of MOOC s in the global educational landscape. Among different topics that this study discovered, government‐related issues and the use of data and analytics are some of the topics that seem to be growing in popularity during the first half of 2014.