What do students want to know while taking massive open online courses?: Examining massive open online course students’ needs based on online forum discussions from the Universal Design for Learning approach

We identified the nine most dominant massive open online course (MOOC) students’ needs by topic modeling and qualitative analysis of forum discussion posts (n = 3645) among students, staff, and instructors from 21 courses. We examined the implications of these needs using three main Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles (representation, action and expression, and engagement). We then offered suggestions for what course providers can do to promote an equitable learning experience for MOOC students. The three suggestions are as follows: (1) providing tools such as a direct messaging application to encourage students’ socializing behaviors, (2) modifying course activities to promote more hands-on projects and sharing them, and (3) implementing a bidirectional channel, such as a natural language processing-based chatbot so that students can access useful information whenever they feel the need. We argue that it is critical to include minority students’ voices when examining needs in courses, and our methodology reflects this purpose. We also discuss how the UDL approach helped us recognize students’ needs, create more accessible MOOC learning experiences, and explore future research directions.