Design and early development of a MOOC on "Sustainability in everyday life": Role of the teachers

Abstract

Universities all over the world have developed Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to attract students and explore new ways of learning. The MOOC "Sustainability in Everyday Life" (SiEL) is currently in its design and early development stage at Chalmers University of Technology. It aims at developing the MOOC participant's capacity to appreciate the complexity of sustainable everyday life by developing skills such as systems thinking and critical reflection on the information flow in public media. This paper aims at sharing first experiences regarding the design and early development of the SiEL MOOC and identifying the role(s) of the teachers and its features during the course design and early development based on these first experiences. An action research approach was used to reach these aims, and the teachers' narratives about these first experiences were used as data source. Three distinct processes (pedagogical, production and interaction) and six roles (owners, teachers, learners, designers, developers and negotiators) were identified. The teachers' roles and the processes and activities taking place during the design and early development are closely linked to each other and need to be carefully considered in order to guarantee a successful MOOC design and development process.

Full text

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DESIGN AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF A MOOC ON
”SUSTAINABILITY IN EVERYDAY LIFE”: ROLE OF THE TEACHERS
Matty Janssen1,2, Anna Nyström Claesson1 and Maria Lindqvist1
1 Environmental Systems Analysis, Department of Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of
Technology, SE-412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
2 mathias.janssen@chalmers.se
Abstract: Universities all over the world have developed Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) to
attract students and explore new ways of learning. The MOOC “Sustainability in Everyday Life” (SiEL) is
currently in its design and early development stage at Chalmers University of Technology. It aims at
developing the MOOC participant’s capacity to appreciate the complexity of sustainable everyday life by
developing skills such as systems thinking and critical reflection on the information flow in public media.
This paper aims at sharing first experiences regarding the design and early development of the SiEL
MOOC and identifying the role(s) of the teachers and its features during the course design and early
development based on these first experiences. An action research approach was used to reach these
aims, and the teachers’ narratives about these first experiences were used as data source. Three distinct
processes (pedagogical, production and interaction) and six roles (owners, teachers, learners, designers,
developers and negotiators) were identified. The teachers’ roles and the processes and activities taking
place during the design and early development are closely linked to each other and need to be carefully
considered in order to guarantee a successful MOOC design and development process.
1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Universities all over the world have engaged in the development and implementation of Massive Open
Online Courses (MOOCs) in the past few years. MOOC participants can be of all ages, have diverse
educational background, have an interest to learn more about a topic outside of the formal university
education system, and be located anywhere on the world. The number of sign-ups varies from MOOC to
MOOC, but there are numerous courses with more than 100,000 sign-ups, and the largest course so far
exceeds 250,000 sign-ups (EdX, 2015).
Very recently, at the end of 2014, Chalmers University of Technology started the development of its first
two MOOCs. As one of these two courses, “Sustainability in Everyday Life” (SiEL) was chosen after a
university-wide call for proposals earlier in the year. The course is going to be published on the EdX
platform under the name ChalmersX. There are several reasons why Chalmers decided to start this
development and to choose this course (Janssen and Stöhr, 2015):
• Branding of the Chalmers name by bringing one of its main strategic goals, sustainable development,
to a digital platform with a global reach,
• Opening up higher education to a global audience, and
• Building up experience at Chalmers in developing, implementing and evaluating MOOCs.
EESD’15
The 7th International Conference on Engineering Education for Sustainable Development
Vancouver, Canada, June 9 to 12, 2015

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The development of the SiEL MOOC is done by a large development team. This team consists of the
authors of the SiEL MOOC proposal (henceforth called the teachers, also the authors of this paper), and
several support members that take care of course design and pedagogic support, technical production,
implementation on and support of the EdX platform, marketing and documentation. Furthermore, other
teachers at the division where the authors of the MOOC proposal reside (the division of Environmental
Systems Analysis (ESA) at Chalmers) are involved in providing course material. This paper will
exclusively address the SiEL MOOC, and focus on the role and perspective of the teachers involved
during the design and early development of the course. Thus, the aims of this paper are: 1) to share first
experiences regarding the design and early development of the SiEL MOOC; and 2) to identify the role(s)
of the teachers and its features during the course design and early development based on these first
experiences.
The paper will continue with a description of the concept of the course. This is followed by a literature
review regarding the role of the teacher in a MOOC. This review forms the basis for formulating several
questions regarding the role and perspective of the teachers in this course. This is followed by reflections
of the teachers about their motivations and first experiences so far. These reflections are then used to
answer the formulated questions, and conclusions are made.
1.2 MOOC design and early development process
Although age distribution and the educational background of future MOOC participants are unknown, we
attempted to define a target group including the minimum prerequisites. Helpful in this is the concept of
the “informed citizen” that is defined by the European Union as the 15-year old student passing the final
national tests in compulsory school (European Union, 2015). Therefore, the prerequisite for the course is
the knowledge gained during compulsory school.
The design of the course follows the pedagogical idea represented in Figure 1. Five different topics
related to sustainability were chosen based on their importance with regards to sustainability, and their
occurrence in Swedish, Dutch, German and French media. These so-called “hot spots” are used to
introduce the MOOC participants to the complexities of sustainability in everyday life. The hot spots used
in the SiEL MOOC are: energy, food, climate change, globalization and chemicals. A more detailed view
of a hot spot is given in Figure 2. The course introduces each hot spot with a 15-minute introductory
lecture. This level aims at being a teaser and an introduction to the topic that gives some preliminary
answers, but also generates questions and further nourishes the participant’s interest. The second level
consists of a set of mini-lectures of 5 to 7 minutes which further develop different aspects of the hot spots
and add more detail to the introductory lecture. The aims of these mini-lectures are: 1) to increase the
knowledge about the hot spot; 2) to show a simplified complexity by relating the hot spots to each other
thus creating a level of systems thinking; and 3) to put the hot spots into the context of everyday life. It
needs to be pointed out that the MOOC participants are assumed to be at the knowledge level of an
university freshman at this second level (Figure 2). The course is concluded with a final exam in which the
participants are tested on their ability to make sustainable choices in everyday life situations. The
possibility to construct this exam in the form of a game is currently explored.
Figure 1: The pedagogical idea used to design the SiEL MOOC

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Figure 2: Detailed view of a ”hot spot” in which one of the selected topics is used to introduce the MOOC
participants to the complexities of sustainability in everyday life
The learning outcomes of the SiEL MOOC aim at developing the participant’s capacity to appreciate the
complexity of sustainable everyday life by developing skills such as systems thinking and critical reflection
on the information flow in public media. Furthermore, the course aims at giving the participants a sense of
empowerment that enables them to move towards a more sustainable way of living (citizen stewardship).
1.3 Literature review
In recent years MOOCs have received a lot of media attention. While many MOOC developers believe
that MOOCs are worth this hype, neither does a large majority believe that MOOCs deserve the formal
credit of an educational institution, nor do they believe that it will be given in the future (Kolowich &
Newman, 2013). W ith the increased media attention, the existing MOOCs have also been scrutinized
more heavily. For instance, skeptics remain doubtful about the educational value of MOOCs or question if
MOOCs can give participants a satisfying learning experience (Kellogg, 2013). Margaryan et al. (2015)
analyzed the instructional design quality of 76 MOOCs based on First Principles of Instruction (Merrill,
2002), and found that while most MOOCs are well-packaged and well-organized, the instructional design
quality is low. This indicates that there is room for improvement regarding the design and development of
MOOCs. MOOC design was identified, among others, as a research theme by Gašević et al. (2014).
There are already examples of research in this field, see e.g. Guàrdia et al. (2013) who described ten
MOOC design principles. It seems however that this research field is currently more focused on
approaching the research problematic from a learner’s perspective, and seems less concerned with the
role and perspective of the teacher during the design and development of a MOOC (Ross et al., 2014).
Nevertheless, a few studies were found in the literature that focus on this particular topic.
One study that focuses on supporting teachers in the description and design of MOOCs was published by
Alario-Hoyos et al. (2014). In this study the so-called MOOC Canvas was developed which defines eleven
interrelated issues of logistical, technological, pedagogical and financial nature that are addressed
through a set of questions, and offers teachers guidance during the MOOC design process. In the MOOC
Canvas the eleven issues are arranged under an available resources category and a design decisions
category. Currently, the MOOC Canvas has only been applied to MOOCs about subjects related to
technology and education, and requires validation by applying it to MOOCs that address other subjects.
Ross et al. (2014) looked more closely at the role of a MOOC teacher and worked to demonstrate that
paying attention to the complexity of the teacher’s experience and identity might ultimately be essential to
the success of the MOOC as a new educational format. The authors described their experiences in
teaching a MOOC and indicated that perhaps the most difficult issue they dealt with was to what extent
they needed to take responsibility for what was happening in the MOOC. Another important issue related
to the role of the teachers in this MOOC was their presence and visibility. The authors conclude by saying
that ”we need a richer and more robust conceptualization of the teacher within the MOOC” (p. 67).

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2 RESEARCH METHOD
The investigation into the role of the three principal MOOC teachers during the design and development
of the SiEL MOOC was done using an action research approach. Action research is grounded in
experience, and is action-oriented and participative (Reason & Bradbury, 2001). Furthermore, Baskerville
and Myers (2004) argue that action researchers need to be participant observers, and that a collaborative
team is involved in reasoning, action formulation, and action taking. To the authors’ knowledge little action
research into MOOC design and development and the role of the involved teachers during this has been
done. One study found in the MOOC literature where an action research approach was taken to study
MOOC design described the MOOC design process, and participant engagement and experiences but
did not focus on the role of the teachers (Vivian et al., 2014). Therefore, we chose to use the action
research approach because, besides being the designers of the SiEL MOOC concept (see Figures 1 and
2) and authors of this paper, we are all involved in the MOOC design and development.
Based on the literature review and on the aims of this paper, we sought to answer the following questions
pertaining to the design and early development process of the MOOC and the role of the teachers:
1) What actions did the teachers take to initiate and make progress during the design process?
2) What have the roles of the teachers been during the design process?
3) How did the teachers manage to engage and to convey their ideas to the project group and their
colleagues?
The data for answering these questions were provided by means of the teachers’ narratives about the
design and early development process of the MOOC. The narratives were written in chronological order
describing and reflecting on meetings and other activities (workshops, seminars) that took place over a 9-
month period, from early May 2015 until early February 2015. Due to the teachers’ different backgrounds
and tasks during these activities, different perspectives of the same activities were described in these
narratives. The narratives were then analyzed and systematically reflected upon in order to answer the
formulated questions.
3 SUMMARY OF THE TEACHERS’ NARRATIVES
During the analysis of and reflections upon our narratives (i.e. the teachers’ narratives), we realized that
the different activities we were engaged in may be grouped into three different types of processes,
namely, the pedagogical process, the interaction process and the production process (Figure 3).
3.1 Pedagogical process
The pedagogical process is our exploratory journey in the world of MOOCs and has been (and most likely
will continue to be) very creative. We have received a lot of useful input from the other stakeholders
involved (the MOOC development team, our colleagues at the division of Environmental Systems
Analysis (ESA) at Chalmers) in the MOOC design and development process, e.g. on the peculiarites of
running a MOOC, and on the topics of the mini-lectures that are part of each hot spot. Nevertheless, we
ourselves put in the largest effort creating the pedagogical concept of the MOOC by evaluating different
options. This happened during very open and dynamic sessions in which we brainstormed, discussed,
and generated and structured our ideas. Many of the main elements in the course design were conceived
during these sessions, e.g. the hot spots, trying to give the participants a sense of empowerment, citizen
stewardship and the overall course learning outcomes. An example that reflects this creative environment
is the evolution of the hot spot from the MOOC proposal up to its current form (Figure 4). As shown, the
fundamental premise stayed the same but the details of the design evolved to become more transparent,
including the evolution of the MOOC participant through the course. Furthermore, we have been learning
how to shape these ideas within the setting of a MOOC. The products of this process are intellectual
goods for which we have a strong feeling of ownership and, consequently, about which we are rather
unwilling to make compromises.

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Figure 3: Classification of processes taking place during the MOOC design and early development and
the roles of the teachers in these processes
3.2 Production process
The production process has for us been characterized by informing and being informed, and by
generating ideas. We have for instance had speaker training and one of us coached the speaker for one
of the introductory lectures. However, we are currently only in the beginning stages of production. So far,
the introductory lecture on globalization and the so-called teaser (the promotional video for the SiEL
MOOC that will be on the EdX course website) have been recorded. Our interaction with the production
team has been smooth, supportive and cooperative. Other practical topics that we addressed were the
use and capabilities of the EdX platform, the use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram)
for the promotion of the course and during the course, and the different formats that can be used in the
design of the mini-lectures. In this process, we also have a sense of ownership with regards to the actual
content of the recorded material. For instance, during the preparation of the teaser we argued with the
production team about the story board where our ideas were not in complete agreement. We ended up
finding a good compromise. Our colleagues at the division of ESA at Chalmers are instrumental in this
process because several of them will record introductory lectures and mini-lectures.
3.3 Interaction process
The interaction process is the process where we needed to make the other members of the MOOC
development team and our colleagues at the division of ESA like our pedagogical ideas and go along with
them. For instance, in the very early stages (before our MOOC proposal was chosen) we were asked to
further clarify the aims and goals of the MOOC in an interview. Another important example was the intro-
Figure 4: Evolution of the design of the hot spots used in the SiEL MOOC, from MOOC proposal on the
left to its current form on the right

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duction of the MOOC to our colleagues who, despite a healthy amount of skepticism and scrutiny, were
positive about the it. In both cases we were (more or less) promoting our ideas. Other activities were
attending a one-day seminar about MOOCs organized by the Chalmers Library where we learned about
other MOOC initiatives in Sweden, and presenting the SiEL MOOC and our motivations and first
experiences at the KUL conference at Chalmers (Janssen & Stöhr, 2015). Within the interaction process
we have also negotiated about several aspects that are part of the MOOC, see for instance the example
about the teaser story board (section 3.2, p.5). Negotiation has also been a part of creating the content
for each of the hot spots and will probably also be a part of motivating our colleagues to use one format or
another for their mini-lectures. This process is about listening and being open-minded in order to improve
an original idea where necessary. We need to guarantee that, for instance, the person doing an
introductory lecture or mini-lecture has ownership of his or her idea and feels enthusiatic about what he or
she is doing.
3.4 Iteraction between the processes
The three identified processes are interlinked, that is, each process interacts with the other two processes
(Figure 3). The production process receives inputs from both the pedagogical and interaction process,
whereas the latter two processes provide inputs to one another. The outcomes of the pedagogical
process have been direct inputs to the production process, for instance, by coaching an introductory
lecture speaker. They have also been used to inform the stakeholders about the MOOC design and
development process, for instance, informing our colleagues about the SiEL MOOC. The outcomes of the
interaction process have been inputs for the production process, for instance, the result of the discussion
about the teaser story board. They have also been to used to improve our pedagogical idea of the MOOC
via feedback from our colleagues. The production process could provide inputs to the other two
processes, but in this case these would most likely indicate the limits on the capacities of the production
team (budget, man hours, etc). These limits have so far not been reached.
4 ROLES OF THE TEACHERS
4.1 Definition of the teachers’ roles
The interaction between the identified processes affects the roles we, the teachers, play in each process,
and we have tried to identify these roles (Figure 3). We identified six roles that we have had during the
design and early development of the MOOC so far: owners, teachers, learners, designers, developers
and negotiators. Our role as owners is thanks to the strong sense of ownership we have for the
pedagogical idea of the MOOC and the sense of co-ownership for the course material that is developed
by ourselves, our colleagues and the production team. We act as teachers when we explain our
pedagogical idea for the MOOC and when we inform and interact with others regarding our ideas about
the course. We are learners when we are exposed to others’ ideas about MOOC design and development
or learning new skills that are needed during the production of the MOOC. We are designers when we are
brainstorming and generating ideas for the course design or about specific content, and we are
developers when we are involved with the hands-on development of the course material. Lastly, we
become negotiators in order to enthuse all others that are involved with the MOOC design and
development.
4.2 Teachers’ roles in the identified processes
In each process we assumed a different set of roles, and there are overlaps between these sets of roles
(Figure 3). Taking the roles of owners, teachers and designers in the pedagogical process helped us to
create and design a very clear and transparent pedagogical idea that we felt strongly about and that we
were able to successfully communicate to the other stakeholders involved. The roles we have had in the
interaction process enabled us to inform, to receive and process new knowledge and to communicate
with the other stakeholders such that we were able to find compromises if needed. The roles we took up
in the production process enabled us to develop our own ideas for the content in collaboration with the
other stakeholders. The roles we have during the production process will be defined with more detail once

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more introductory lectures, mini-lectures, and other course material such as the exercises and the exam
problem have been developed.
In both the pedagogical and production process one of the roles was to facilitate interaction with the other
processes: we acted as teachers in the case of the pedagogical process, and as leaners in the case of
the production process. This helped us to engage the other stakeholders and to clearly convey our idea
about the MOOC. Furthermore, in both these processes we took up the role of owners, reflecting a keen
motivation to translate our pedagogical ideas into high-quality course material. Our role as teachers is
apparent in the pedagogical and interaction process, and as learners in the production and interaction
process. This reflects both the importance of the interaction process itself and our willingness to inform
the other stakeholders and to be informed by them. Our roles as designers, developers and negotiators
are specific to the pedagogical, production and interaction processes, respectively. These are more
specialized roles that are needed in these processes.
4.3 Importance of the teachers’ roles
Our assumed roles during the design and early development of the MOOC have been instrumental in a
so far smooth overall process. Our ability to switch between these roles, or combinations of roles, has
apparently contributed to this. Furthermore, our strong feeling of ownership has driven the design and
development of the course to a great extent. The roles through which we have interacted with the other
stakeholders are of high importance and have guaranteed good and sufficient communication.
5 CONCLUSION
This paper is an exploration of the roles of the teachers during the design and early development of the
”Sustainability in Everyday Life” MOOC at Chalmers University of Technology. We thus have not included
the complete design and development process, because it is not finished yet. Nevertheless, this
preliminary study gives some insight into the roles of the teachers involved. The teachers’ roles and the
processes and activities taking place during the design and early development are closely linked to each
other and need to be carefully considered in order to guarantee a successful MOOC design and
development process.
Work in the near future will focus on including the remainder of the design and development process in
our assessment of the teachers’ roles, and on evaluating the MOOC once it has been given for the first
time. Furthermore, we will compare the MOOC design and development process with this process for on-
campus courses in order to identify elements that may strengthen each process. We will also explore the
use of material developed for the MOOC in on-campus courses.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge Christian Stöhr for giving feedback during the development of this paper,
and the MOOC development team and our colleagues at the division of Environmental Systems Analysis
at Chalmers for their inputs during the design and development of the course so far.
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