JIME Virtual Special Collection – 2012 to 2022: The Decade of the MOOC

Abstract

In a New York Times article, Pappano (2012) declared 2012 as ‘the year of the MOOC’. It was a year which saw a surge in interest in this new, open form of online higher education. While the initial hype around Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) subsided and their form has changed significantly from the first large-scale courses, more learners than ever are registered with the platforms, which have attracted substantial levels of investment. In this special collection, we bring together articles published in the Journal of Interactive Media in Education over the past ten years, which have focused upon MOOCs from a diverse range of research perspectives. First, we provide an overview of major events and trends in relation to MOOCs over the past ten years. We then take a closer look at the 25 papers published in JIME and included in the virtual special collection, arranged in relation to four main themes, including: situating MOOCs; learning design and roles; MOOCs and languages; and accessibility and inclusion. of data case study of learning design how MOOCs can be used to support a range of learners. the example of the University of Warwick’s ‘Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing’ MOOC, delivered through the FutureLearn platform. This MOOC incorporated survey data collection into the on a topic related to the integrating a research tool into the MOOC as large scale data collection, and enriching the experience for also of This study explores the perspectives of a small sample of invisible learners,