Abstract

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) allow students to study online courses without requiring previous experience or qualifications. This offers students the freedom to study a wide variety of topics, freed from the curriculum of a degree programme for example; however, it also poses a challenge for students in terms of making connections between individual courses. This paper examines the subjects which students at one MOOC platform (Coursera) choose to study. It uses a social network analysis based approach to create a network graph of co-studied subjects. The resulting network demonstrates a good deal of overlap between different disciplinary areas. Communities are identified within the graph and characterised. The results suggests that MOOC students may not be seeking to replicate degree-style courses in one specialist area, which may have implications for the future moves toward ‘MOOCs for credit’.

Citation

Jordan, K. (2014). Exploring Co-studied Massive Open Online Course Subjects via Social Network Analysis. International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), 9(8), 38-41. Kassel, Germany: International Journal of Emerging Technology in Learning. Retrieved August 7, 2024 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/148179/.

Keywords

• Curricula
• Massive Open Online Courses
• MOOCS
• Open Education
• social network analysis