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183EMOOCs 2015
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Proceedings of the European MOOC Stakeholder Summit 2015
What do we know about typical
MOOC participants? First insights from the eld
Kristina Neuböck and Michael Kopp, Academy of New Media and Knowledge Transfer/
University of Graz, Austria
Martin Ebner, Department of Social Learning/Graz University of Technology, Austria
ABSTRACT
Massive Open Online Courses became a worldwide phenomenon. Especially in Central Europe
it is a subject of debates whether universities should invest more money or not. This research
study likes to give rst answers about typical MOOC participants based on data from different
eld studies of the Austrian MOOC-platform iMooX.
It can be pointed out that the typical learner is a student or an adult learner, strongly
interested in the course topic or just interested in learning with media and nally with self-
contained learning competencies. The research work concludes that MOOCs broaden the
educational eld for universities and are a possibility to educate the public in a long run.
Introduction & Research Question
During the last years MOOCs became a big issue
in higher education. After the rst hype MOOCs
are meanwhile the subject of intensive scientic
research. The related research areas touch on a
number of scientic questions, e.g.: Do MOOCs
really enhance teaching and learning or are they
just old wine in new bottles (Ebner et al., 2014)? Do
MOOCs need a special instructional design (Kopp
& Lackner, 2014) and what advantages, challenges
and obstacles come with them? What conditions
are necessary to anchor MOOCs rmly at the
university? How long will MOOCs remain free for
the general public (Kopp, 2014) and are there any
business models for MOOCs (Fischer et al., 2014)?
The focus of all these considerations is - of course
- on the participants, the learners. A recent study
of the European University Association (Gaebel
et al., 2014) shows that participation in MOOCs
provided by European universities varies greatly and
that participation consists in a combination of own
students, other domestic learners and international
learners, in which the ratio between the three
groups also varies from university to university.
The same applies to completion rates, which vary
between 4% and 50%, depending on the institution
and the course. The median completion rate is 15%,
though only nine European institutions answered
the survey.
The aim of this paper is to learn more about the
average MOOC participant as well as her/his
intentions to participate in a course and to complete
the course. Thus, demographic data is just as
interesting as the motives for course participation
and the competences of the participants. The
research data is gained through several surveys,
which were conducted during the rst three
MOOCs offered by the Austrian MOOC-platform
iMooX (www.imoox.at). Due to the limited responses
it is not possible to draw an overall picture of the
typical MOOC participant, but the paper will show
some signicant tendencies on how a MOOC
participant can be characterized and it will answer
the questions about what a participant in an iMooX
course looks like, what participants expect from
iMooX courses as well as from the iMooX platform
and what competences they bring along by enrolling
for an iMooX course as well as which skills they gain
by participating.
The Austrian iMooX platform
The Austrian MOOC platform iMooX was
established by the University of Graz and the
University of Technology of Graz with the help of
public funding. The main aim of the project is to
provide “education for all”, i.e. not only for students
but for the widest possible public. Therefore, the
target group also includes people who do not have
high school diplomas or university degrees. All
offered materials undertake a scientic claim, but
they are also obliged to the philosophy of lifelong
learning. An additional special feature of iMooX
is the fact that all materials are provided as Open
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Educational Resources (OER) under a creative
commons license.
Since iMooX is the one and only Austrian MOOC
platform it gained considerable interest from media.
This meant that some 1,000 persons registered
within a few days after the release of the platform
and some more enrolled for the rst three offered
courses. For the operators of the platform it was
very interesting from the start to know who the
participants are and what motives they have to
attend the courses. Thus, the decision was made
to conduct a corresponding survey to enhance the
design of the courses and the platform with the
help of the given feedback. Unfortunately – and
due to the fact that there was not enough expertise
available at the beginning – the surveys embedded
in the three courses differ slightly. Therefore, the
answers to the questionnaires also vary a bit, but
since the basis of the surveys was always the same,
in principal all data and results can be considered as
valid and comparable.
By now there are nine courses available at iMooX
and another ten to fteen courses will be released
during 2015. A survey will still be carried out in
each course, but with a lower scope, in order not to
unnecessarily bother the participants. This said, the
following data and results refer to the polls from the
rst three courses.
A rst analysis of iMooX
participants
During the summer term 2014 iMooX offered its
rst three courses (Learning online - from what is
possible and feasible, Mechanics - collision of two bodies
in the plane and Bulb moments from Experimental
Physics). These courses were attended by 1,333
participants and 101 graduates (7,6%). In the
courses Mechanics and Experimental Physics each
participant had to complete a questionnaire at the
beginning as well as at the end of the course to
evaluate the iMoox platform and the offered course.
The outcome of the evaluation at the beginning
of the course was 53 lled questionnaires of the
course Mechanics and 63 of the course Experimental
Physics. In the course Learning online the evaluation
was done only at the end of the course, with 83 lled
questionnaires. The questionnaire included ten
issues and information about demographic data. The
aim was to identify the satisfaction with the courses
and the platform.
The following summary supplies information about
the “typical” iMooX-user in the summer term 2014
based on the evaluation results.
Gender, age and education of
the iMooX user
Participants of the iMooX courses were
predominately male i.e. 65% of the learners were
male (see Fig.1). One reason could be the topics
of the courses such as Experimental Physics and
Mechanics, which are typically preferred by men.
This result is similar to a survey at the Stanford
University. In this survey 83 people completed the
survey, 34 female and 49 male. The overall age range
of respondents was 28 to 69 (cf. Rodriguez 2012:8).
Another issue is that the MOOC-format attracts
people who are interested in technology and new
course formats (cf. Koutropoulos et al. 2012:3).
Again, these are favorite issues of a male population.
Fig.1 also shows that there is no signicant
difference between the courses, and that - following
the trend - more technical related courses attract
male learners.
Figure 1. Gender of participants.
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Figure 2. Age of participants.
Figure 3. Graduation of participants.
The typical iMooX user’s age was between 20 and 34
years (44%) (see Fig.2). Further 29% were between
35 and 49 years old. In summary we can determine
that nearly three quarter of the interviewees were
between 20 and 49 years old. At least a quarter of
the participants were between 50 and 64 years old,
a target group that in Central Europe normally has a
low represention at universities (at least in German-
speaking countries). Only less than 2% are younger
than 18 or 5% older than 65 years.
If we take a look at the education level of the
participants, most participants obtained either a
school leaving certicate or an academic study.
Based on the fact that iMooX is run by two
universities mainly students attend the courses.
Especially in the course Learning online 40% of
the graduates were students. Two- third of these
students were self-enrolled, only one third took
part by teacher’s requirement. Nevertheless, also
employees, persons on maternity leave or taking
time off took part in the courses. This result is
similar to empirical data from Linnaeus University.
Participants of online courses from this university
are generally older than 25, already have a university
degree, families and full-time employments
(Creelman/Reneland-Forsman 2013:43).
Fig.3 shows that MOOC participants are a highly
educated target group. 89% of the participants
obtained at least a school leaving certicate (high
school) and more than the half hold at least an
undergraduate degree (57%). 41% of the learners
are highly experienced learners due to the fact that
they obtained a master degree and even 9% of the
participants completed a PhD study. This result
is remarkable, if we compare the data with the
educational background of the Austrian population:
In this case 19% complete a primary or secondary
education, 51% a vocational education, 15% obtain a
school leaving certicate and only 15% complete an
academic study (cf. Statistik Austria 2014).
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Although the iMooX participants were highly
educated, only a few have gained experience with
online courses. As pointed out in Fig.4 60% had not
attended an online course previously and only 13%
declared that they have visited more than three
online courses until participating in an iMooX course.
(This result is similar to our registration survey in
the winter term 2014/15. Only one third declared to
enjoy learning in online courses. Let us assume that
only these participants have experiences with online
courses.) An evident fact is that the participants
were generally interested in education. About 63%
(from a basic population of 116) of the respondents
declared that they invested more than ve hours per
month into education during the last year. More than
a quarter invested more than € 500 in education.
According to the interviewees the ability to learn
Figure 4. Number of passed online courses before
attending iMooX.
(69%) and the interest in new knowledge (66%) are
the most important competences during an online
course.
Motives of the iMooX user
One part of the evaluation was to assess the motives
for the course attendance of the iMooX participants
(see Fig.5). The results indicated that gaining
experience with online courses (75% agree this “full”
or “rather”) as well as the course topic (86% agree
this “full” or “rather”) were the driving facts. Further
important reasons for participating were the request
for further training (61%), the individual professional
life (51%) and the personal interest in open online
courses (47%). Only one third of the interviewees
said that also their place of domicile is a valid
reason for attending an open online course. These
reasons may differ from previous assumption, where
distance learning is often the only option for further
education because of family and geographical
matter (cf. Mahieu/Wolming 2013:2-3). Insignicant
factors at our survey were physical handicaps (9%,
two-thirds of these persons were between 20 and
49 years old) and the participation in the course of
friends, acquaintances or relatives (15%).
This result is very similar to the ongoing iMooX
registration survey at the beginning of the winter
term 2014. The iMooX team investigated the
reasons for iMooX registration. Overall, 483
participants were asked until the 30th of September
2014. Once again this result conrmed that the
topic (64%) represents the most important factor
for a registration to an online course. More than
Figure 5. Motives why to attend a iMooX course.
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Figure 6. Evaluation of the platform.
Figure 7. Evaluation of the courses and the course units.
half of the respondents (56%) declared that gaining
experience with online courses was the main reason
for their registration.
Evaluation of the iMooX
platform and the iMooX
courses
Noteworthy is also the satisfaction of the
participants with the iMooX platform. First of all
we examined the usability and user friendliness
of the platform, which included the assessment of
the graphic presentation, navigation, structure and
classication as well as the overall assessment of the
platform (see Fig.6). Fortunately, the majority of the
interviewees evaluated the platform with “excellent”
or at least “good”. The best results (84%) could be
found for the overall assessment as well as for the
structure and classication of the platform (81%).
Similar results were reached for the evaluation of
the course contents (see Fig.7). In this evaluation
eld the best results were also achieved for the
general course evaluation. 80% of the learners
were very highly or highly satised with the course.
For 78% of the participants the learning content
and structure were “excellent” or at least “good”.
Furthermore, 77% rated the design of the texts
and 76% the graphic presentation with “excellent”
or at least “good”. In summary the majority of the
participants assessed the platform plus the three
offered courses with “excellent” or at least “good”.
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Activity and competences of
iMooX users
The number of certicates showed that the
completion rate is about 7,6%, which is comparable
to other research studies (Hanan & Ebner, 2014).
Generally, the majority of MOOC participants
(about 88%) are lurkers or drop the course (cf.
Koutropoulos et al. 2012:2f). In this regard it is
particularly interesting how many course units were
completed by the participants. This can be - among
other things - analyzed by the frequency of quiz
starts. Quizzes at iMooX and general at MOOCs
are a kind of knowledge check. These checks can be
found at the end of each unit and support the users
in reviewing their increase of knowledge.
The quiz of the rst learning unit was started most
frequently in all three courses. As Fig.8 shows the
number of quiz starts in the course Learning online
- from what is possible and feasible was altogether
4,044. It must be taken into account that each user
has theoretically the possibility to start/complete
each quiz 5 times, which means that the rst quiz
was started on average 4 times/learner. The second
quiz was started/completed 1,947 times. Fig.8
demonstrates also the decrease of the quiz activities
during the course. The result of the course Learning
online is more or less the same in comparison to the
number of quiz starts in the courses Mechanics and
Experimental Physics. Compare this result with the
result from Rodriguez (cf. Rodriguez 2012:9).
Figure 8. Number of quiz starts.
Figure 9. Which competences do you need as a learner to complete a MOOC?
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Summary of the survey
In summary it can be stated that the typical iMooX
user in the summer term 2014 was male, between
20 and 34 years old and she/he obtained either
a school leaving certicate or an academic study.
The most important reasons for participating in an
online course at iMooX were the topics of the course
and to collect experiences with MOOCs. iMooX
had a positive connotation, the learners were very
satised with the offered courses and the platform.
Further, the activity of iMooX participants during
the different courses is of interest: the activity of the
MOOC participants decreased with the increase of
course units, but at least 7,6 % of the participants
nished the entire course. These graduates
mentioned that the ability of self-contained learning,
the intention to learn as well as their interest in new
knowledge were decisive for completing the course.
Finally, it must be pointed out that the limit of this
study is that the evaluation form was mainly lled
out by learners who completed the course. In
other words we only got response from the most
successful population and did not know why others
skipped the course at an earlier stage.
Discussion
The evaluation of the summer term 2014 at the
iMooX produced some interesting results:
• Fig.2 shows that the majority (44%) of the
participants are students aged between 20 and 44
and that more than the half (54%) of the learners
are older than 34 years, which means that our
MOOCs particularly address the sector of adult
education. This educational eld is currently not
in the scope of universities at least in German-
speaking countries. As Kopp et al. (2014) pointed
out further strategies on how to offer education,
also to the adult sector in a long run, are needed.
• The idea of iMooX is not only to offer MOOCs
for free and as Open Educational Resource
but also to attract a broad public for learning.
Nevertheless, Fig.3 shows clearly that only 11%
of the (successful) learners have no school leaving
examination. In other words a typical MOOC
participant is a very highly experienced learner.
This fact corresponds with Fig. 9 because learners
rated the competence of self-contained learning
as most important. It must be mentioned that the
ability of self-contained learning is a precondition
to pass an online course successfully. Due to
the fact that our primary and secondary schools
do not have a strong focus on teaching such
competencies, learners with low education simply
do not have the ability to succeed.
• Fig.5 shows also an interesting outcome. Due
to the fact that especially in Central Europe the
education is primarily face-to-face the need for
distance education is rather low. MOOCs will not
solve a distance problem but will help to support
time exibility.
• Learning only happens in a user-friendly
environment (Ebner & Holzinger, 2003). Learners
have to concentrate on the content and should not
be stressed by the hosting information system.
Fig.6 and Fig.7 show that learners like the iMoox
platform, which was developed with the idea to
present a smart, innovative and less complex
interface.
• Finally, Fig.8 shows an exponential decrease of
learners over the duration of the course. This
result correlates highly with other research
studies summarized by Khalil & Ebner, 2014. Due
to the fact that all courses show similar curves
the duration of the MOOCs should be discussed.
From our point of view we lost most of the learners
until week 5. From week 5 onwards the number of
participants was more or less stable. In the future
the idea of short MOOCs (sMOOC) should be
taken into account so that it is easier for learners
to succeed (for example to split one course into
two).
Conclusion
In this contribution we took a rst closer look at
our learners. The evaluation results opened our
minds towards new strategies we have to address,
especially for the adult learner. Furthermore, the
main competence to pass the course successfully is
the ability of self-contained learning. If we would like
to bring learning content to a wide and broad public
this is maybe the crucial factor we have to ensure on
the learner’s side.
Finally, it must be pointed out that this study is a
rst insight to learners’ proles and lot of further
research will be necessary to increase the power of
Massive Open Online Courses.
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