A MOOC approach for training researchers in developing countries

Abstract

We report on an online course in research writing offered in a massive open online course (MOOC) format for developing country researchers. The concepts of cognitive presence, teacher presence, and social presence informed the design of the course, with a philosophy of strong social interaction supported by guest facilitators. The course was developed with low-bandwidth elements and hosted on a Moodle site. It was offered twice as a MOOC and 2830 learners from more than 90 countries, mainly in the developing world, took part. The average completion rate was 53%. Female learners and learners who were active in the forums were more likely to complete the course. Our MOOC approach may be a useful model for continuing professional development training in the developing world.

Full text

Reception date: 7 November 2016 • Acceptance date: 14 February 2017
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.9.1.476
Open Praxis, vol. 9 issue 1, January–March 2017, pp. 45–57 (ISSN 2304-070X)
A MOOC approach for training researchers in developing
countries
Ravi Murugesan , Andy Nobes & Joanna Wild
INASP (United Kingdom)
rmurugesan@inasp.info, anobes@inasp.info & jwild@inasp.info
Abstract
We report on an online course in research writing offered in a massive open online course (MOOC) format
for developing country researchers. The concepts of cognitive presence, teacher presence, and social
presence informed the design of the course, with a philosophy of strong social interaction supported by guest
facilitators. The course was developed with low-bandwidth elements and hosted on a Moodle site. It was
offered twice as a MOOC and 2830 learners from more than 90 countries, mainly in the developing world,
took part. The average completion rate was 53%. Female learners and learners who were active in the forums
were more likely to complete the course. Our MOOC approach may be a useful model for continuing
professional development training in the developing world.
Keywords: MOOC; higher education; researchers; developing countries; continuing professional development;
Moodle
Introduction
Knowledge advances through scholarly research, and communication is essential for this
advancement to happen. However, researchers in developing countries face multiple challenges in
publishing their work in peer-reviewed journals: they often lack access to mentors, have limited
opportunities for research funding, have poor access to literature (Nchinda, 2002), and lack training
in research writing skills (Langer, Díaz-Olavarrieta, Berdichevsky & Villar, 2004). There is a basic
“information inequality” in knowledge of publishing practices (such as open access), international
ethical standards, and exploitative practices such as so-called “predatory journals” (Jones, 2015).
Researchers in the Global South may be detached from the information-rich dialogues on scholarly
publishing that tend to take place in the North (Nobes, 2016a). Despite lacking access to continuing
professional development (CPD) training in research communication, developing country researchers
are driven by the same “publish or perish” culture as in developed countries, and they remain acutely
aware of the importance of scholarly research on their countries’ development.
In 2006, the AuthorAID concept was developed to bridge the publishing gap between the developed
and developing world (Freeman & Robbins, 2006). Since then, the AuthorAID project at INASP, an
international development charity in the UK, has supported developing country researchers through
mentoring, training workshops, online courses, e-resources, and institutional partnerships (Nobes,
2016b). In 2011, our pilot online course in research writing was successfully offered to a group of
28 Rwandan researchers with a 90% completion rate (Murugesan, 2012). During 2012 and 2013,
we saw a steady increase in the demand for this course. In 2014 and 2015, we ran the course
for 267 and 356 learners, respectively. Over this period, we began to notice that the gender
balance among learners in our online courses was consistently better than what is typical at
face-to-face workshops we support in developing countries, in which female researchers are often
underrepresented. A participant of an AuthorAID course in 2013 commented that online training may

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Open Praxis, vol. 9 issue 1, January–March 2017, pp. 45–57
be especially accessible for women: “Women have multiple responsibilities with work and family.
Sometimes they can’t think of taking time away from their job and their children” (Owens, 2013).
In 2015, seeing the rapidly increasing demand for training in research writing from developing
countries and their accessibility for both male and female researchers, we were encouraged to
develop a massive open online course (MOOC) approach.
There is already some evidence that researchers are more likely than the general population to
be participants of online courses and MOOCs. For example, Aboshady et al. (2015) found a high
awareness of MOOCs in a survey of Egyptian medical students: 30% had enrolled in at least one
MOOC. Research on MOOCs in developing country contexts is, however, sparse (Castillo, Lee,
Zahra & Wagner, 2015) and mostly limited to participation of developing country users in western
MOOCs (Garrido et al., 2016; Christensen et al., 2013; Ho et al., 2015), where there tends to be
low participation from Asia and especially Africa (Liyanagunawardena, Williams & Adams, 2013).
We know, however, that developing country participants are generally more likely to complete
MOOCs compared to those from developed countries (Garrido et al., 2016), especially when learning
specic job skills (Christensen et al., 2013).
There have been some efforts to adapt western MOOCs to developing country audiences following
the realisation that high-bandwidth elements such as video lectures are not practical and existing
platforms need to be “open-sourced” for adaptation (Lieber, 2013). However, MOOC usage can be
restricted by poor infrastructure as highlighted by Liyanagunawardena et al. (2013), who notes that
even when there is access to good Internet connectivity, poor digital literacy skills pose a barrier.
The problem is intensied when online courses and MOOCs use high-end technology (Warusavitarana,
Lokuge Dona, Piyathilake, Epitawela & Edirisinghe, 2014).
The early promises around MOOCs focused on their potential to democratise education and reach
people with limited learning opportunities. However, it soon became obvious that this ambition could
not be realised with a “one-size-ts-all” MOOC approach, that is, without (1) taking into account the
learners’ circumstances and the context in developing countries; (2) providing little or no guidance
and support for the learners (Patru & Balaji, 2016); and (3) considering language challenges
(Liyanagunawardena et al., 2013). MOOC providers need to adapt to the cultural contexts and
needs of users (Castillo et al., 2015; Daniel, Vázquez & Gisbert, 2015), but it is not yet known what
pedagogical approach is most effective—we are very much in an “experimental phase” for MOOCs
in developing countries (Wildavsky, 2015).
To design the AuthorAID research writing MOOC for audiences in developing countries, we were
guided by the pedagogical model developed by Garrison (2007) and our organisational knowledge
of the socio-political and cultural contexts of researchers in developing countries in Africa and Asia.
In this paper, we explain (1) the approach that guided course design and development; (2) the
rationale behind the choice of technology, content, and methods to support interaction; (3) how we
implemented the course; and (4) the evaluation method and results. Finally, we reect on the
strengths and limitations of our approach.
Course design and development
Given the lack of recognised pedagogical models for designing MOOCs specically for developing
countries, we reviewed existing models of online pedagogy to guide our work. Because our MOOC
had to support low-bandwidth connections, we could not rely on multimedia and video content to
motivate and attract learners. We had to provide high-quality content in a largely textual format.
Therefore, we needed a strong pedagogy to support the learners’ interaction with the content,
facilitators, and peers, and thus to create an engaging learning experience.

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There are several models of online pedagogy that have strong social elements. Mayes’s Conceptual
Learning model (Mayes & Fowler, 1999) is based on stages of “conceptualisation” and “construction”
through the content rst, before the stage of “dialogue” is introduced where deep learning takes
place via student/teacher and student/student interaction. Laurillard’s (2002) Conversational
Framework looks at higher level learning through dialogue at a theoretical and practical level:
through discussion, adaptation, interaction, and reection. Salmon’s (2011) Five Stage Model is
based on increasingly high social interaction and reective dialogue between students and facilitators,
through multiple stages of tasks. However, based on our experiences with previous online courses,
the model that seemed to best t our situation was Garrison’s (2007) Community of Inquiry model.
According to Garrison, Anderson and Archer (1999), “presence” is the key in online interactions,
which makes learning “deep and meaningful” (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005), leads to high
student engagement, and therefore achievement (Oblinger, 2014). In the Community of Inquiry
model (Garrison, 2007), the learners’ experience is shaped by three elements: cognitive presence,
social presence, and teacher presence. Cognitive presence is the learner’s ability to construct
knowledge and negotiate meaning, with the learner actively engaging with the content through
reection and discourse with others. Social presence refers to connecting with others in the course,
relationship building, and being able to engage in purposeful activities together despite the lack of
face-to-face interaction. Finally, teacher presence comes across both within the design—through
explicit signposting and guidance, and through facilitation activities and support offered to the
learners.
Throughout the course design and development process, we referred to Garrison’s model to
support our decision-making. In the next section, we outline the rationale behind the pedagogic
choices we made with respect to the course content, facilitation, and opportunities for peer-learning
and peer-interaction.
Cognitive presence – simple design and engagement with content
The content we developed for the course was deliberately text-based and low-bandwidth, considering
the challenges related to Internet connectivity and digital literacy skills in developing countries. Then
we focused on ways to engage learners with the topic and create opportunities for discussion,
reection, and practice. As most learners who take our courses have full-time responsibilities, we
designed the course to not take more than three to four hours of study time per week.
The course was divided into sections: (1) course induction, with introductory information and
activities to help participants make a strong start; (2) discussion forums containing thematic forums
related to the course topics; (3) one section for each of the ve key topics covered in the course;
and (4) a wrap-up section containing the participant feedback form among other things. The ve
key topics were literature review, research ethics, writing a research paper (parts 1 and 2), and
publishing a paper, and each topic was allocated one week in the course schedule (for example,
Figure 1).

48 Ravi Murugesan et al.
Open Praxis, vol. 9 issue 1, January–March 2017, pp. 45–57
Figure 1: Screenshot of a key topic in the course
The course content was in the form of 12 lessons, with two to three lessons for each of the ve
key course topics. Reective questions embedded in the lessons serve to check learners’
understanding, support meaning-making, and reinforce learning. Learners are provided with instant
feedback and commentary on the questions. Cognitive presence can often be initiated through
“triggering” events (Garrison, 2007). The lessons engaged the learners when introducing controversial
topics such as research ethics and paper authorship, which organically led to lively discussions in
the forums.
Each course topic had a check-your-understanding quiz made up of multiple-choice questions.
Unlimited attempts were allowed on each quiz, and the answer key was revealed at the end of the
course. Learners were required to pass each quiz by scoring at least 80% in order to receive a
course completion certicate.
There were two writing activities in the course which included peer assessment. Peer assessment
helps to develop cognitive presence through higher-level learning (Nagel & Kotzé, 2010) and social
presence through co-learning with other participants. Learners benet when they spend time on the
“cognitively demanding” exercise of reviewing other learners’ work (Nagel & Kotzé, 2010), which,
in turn, should cause them to reect on their own approach to the activity—this is a form of
metacognitive knowledge construction through collaborative learning (Akyol & Garrison, 2011),
which we have also noted in our recent work (Wild, Murugesan, Schaefer & Powell, 2016).
Furthermore, in a MOOC, it is usually not possible for the teacher to give personalised feedback
on the learners’ work. Through peer assessment, learners have the opportunity to get feedback on
their work without depending on the teacher. In the MOOCs reported in this paper, the learners
were asked to write a short essay on research ethics in the rst writing activity and a research
abstract in the second activity. After the submission phase, the activity moved to the assessment
phase: every learner who submitted their work was randomly allocated three of their colleagues’
submissions for assessment and given an assessment form.
Teacher presence – guest facilitation and focused use of video
We considered teacher presence to be an important aspect of the course. Only two members of
the AuthorAID team were in charge of running the MOOCs, but the topic of research writing lends
itself to deep discussion. To meet this challenge, we formed a team of “guest facilitators” drawn
from (1) the AuthorAID network of voluntary mentors from our mentoring scheme; (2) researchers
in developing countries who have attended AuthorAID train-the-trainers workshops; and (3) high
achievers from previous online courses. Their main role was to respond to questions and take part

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in conversations in the discussion forums, and they were provided with detailed guidelines on how
to do this. Guest facilitators’ posts were marked with an AuthorAID logo to distinguish them from
participants’ posts. When making weekly announcements, we encouraged the learners to engage
in the forums because of the ever-present team of guest facilitators.
This approach has been tried in MOOCs elsewhere, for example, a team of 800 volunteers with
basic subject knowledge to encourage learning connections in a MOOC with over 20,000 participants
(Ramirez, 2014) and academic staff or “student ambassadors” as MOOC facilitators to intervene
and guide discussions (Padilla Rodríguez, Armellini & Cáceres Villalba, 2016). Similarly, Lee & Rofe
(2016) included completers of a previous course to create a team of “associate tutors”. This model
was also used by Redeld (2015), who called returning volunteer students “community TAs”. The
difference in our approach is that our guest facilitators are mostly experts in the course topic
(research writing), which further enhances the depth of conversations in the forums.
Although we tried to keep the course as light on bandwidth as possible, we were inuenced by
studies showing that even short videos are effective at establishing the instructor’s teaching presence
with students (Jones, Naugle & Kolloff, 2008; Pan et al., 2012), and could potentially contribute to
all three types of presences in Garrison’s model (Garrison & Arbaugh, 2007). We therefore
experimented in our rst MOOC with a short introductory video featuring the two AuthorAID team
members in charge of the course, in order to “humanise” their online interaction with the course
participants. This was extended in our second MOOC to include a recorded discussion with the two
AuthorAID team members and ve guest facilitators.
Social presence – structured and facilitated forum interaction
We took care to create social presence early in the course by initiating personal introductions and
peer-to-peer interaction in the forums. Social presence is achieved when participants are able to
project their personal characteristics into the community, as “real people” (Garrison et al., 1999).
Forum participation is vital in creating a sense of community and social presence, which if done
successfully can lead to higher student performance (Hostetter & Busch, 2013). As Salmon (2011)
points out, facilitators also have an important role in managing a learning community and socialisation.
By engaging guest facilitators who were mostly subject-matter experts, we hoped to strengthen both
the cognitive and the social aspects of the course.
Asynchronous online discussions can actually achieve higher cognitive value than face-to-face
communication (Meyer, 2003), but it is important for the online discourse to be “structured and
cohesive” (Garrison & Cleveland-Innes, 2005). In our MOOCs, we made available the course
materials in a staggered fashion, with the materials for the rst two weeks opened only at the start
of those weeks, and the remaining materials opened in the third week. This was to keep the learners
focused on one or more related topics at a time. However, in the rst MOOC, we decided to ignite
discussion by opening all the main discussion forums (one for each course topic) at the start of the
course. Unfortunately, this made the forums somewhat chaotic with many questions about topics
covered in lessons not yet available. Hence, in the second MOOC, we decided to structure the
forums in the same way as the weekly course topics, only providing access to one forum per week
until the third week, by which time an etiquette to forum interaction had emerged.
Course implementation and evaluation
The course was implemented on INASP’s Moodle site (Moodle version 2.6). Moodle is open-source
educational technology widely used in both developed and developing countries. The course lessons

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were developed using eXeLearning (eXeLearning version 2.0), an open-source content authoring
tool. The content in the lessons is almost entirely text-based and therefore suitable for low-bandwidth
connections common in developing countries. The content is licensed under Creative Commons
and can be downloaded and viewed ofine. Quizzes and peer assessment activities were developed
using the Moodle “quiz” and “workshop” tools, respectively. Google Hangouts was used to record
the video discussions.
The rst MOOC (MOOC #1 henceforth) ran from October to November 2015, and MOOC #2 ran
from April to May 2016. Both were six weeks long. For both the MOOCs, an open call for enrolment
was publicised over a month before the start date through the AuthorAID website (visited by over
50,000 users annually), social media accounts (Facebook and Twitter), and email to the INASP
network of institutions and partner organisations (INASP, 2016).
To evaluate the learners’ experience of the MOOCs, we collected both qualitative and quantitative
data—the former through a participant feedback survey at the end of each course and the latter
through learning analytics. The feedback survey, made with the Moodle “feedback” tool, contained
several questions with answer choices on a 5-point Likert scale plus a “not applicable” option, as
well as open-ended questions. The participants were asked to give feedback on (1) the course
structure and overall relevance of the course; (2) the course administrators and facilitators; (3) the
lessons, activities, and discussion forums; (4) logistics and technology—for example, the device
they used to study and the factors that disrupted their work on the course; and (5) overall matters.
Moodle offers learning analytics to help teachers understand participation dynamics and
performance levels. This allowed us to explore associations between different items. We used MS
Excel and the statistical computing application R for quantitative analysis covering the whole
population of learners (without any sampling).
Results and discussion
In reporting the results below, we focus on the three types of presences (cognitive, social, and
teacher) and evidence of (1) the learners’ ability to deeply engage with the content and negotiate
meaning through the learning platform; (2) relationship building and learning together and from each
other through peer interaction; and (3) facilitation presence encouraging learner engagement and
supporting learning in the course. We also report on results from a follow-up survey and the course
completers’ perceptions of the role that the course played in helping them get published.
Typically in MOOCs there is a high dropout rate right at the beginning of the course, and completion
often averages around 3% to 15% (Hollands & Tirthali, 2014). One of the key indicators of success
of our approach would be, therefore, a healthy completion rate. In both our MOOCs, the learners
had to complete a background information form in order to access the course material. Completion
of the background information form was the rst step towards actual participation in the course, so
in our analysis we focused on this base of “actual learners”.
In MOOC #1 there were 1275 actual learners among the 1752 people who enrolled. In MOOC
#2, these numbers were 1555 and 3033, respectively. The total of 2830 actual learners came from
95 countries predominantly in the developing world: a little over 50% from Africa, another 40% from
Asia, and most of the remainder from the Middle East and Latin America. Highly represented
countries—with more than 100 learners per country—were Sri Lanka, India, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana,
Nepal, Egypt, Somalia, the Philippines, and Uganda. Table 1 shows the completion rate in the two
MOOCs; the average rate was 53%.

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Table 1: Actual learners and completion rates
Course No. of actual learners
(% women)
% of course completers
(% women)
No. of developing countries
represented by the completers
(women)
MOOC #1 1275 (45%) 47% (49%) 51 (40)
MOOC #2 1555 (46%) 58% (61%) 52 (42)
In addition to the high completion rates, the results by gender are worth noting. The participation
rate of 45%–46% women would seem to buck the trend of research showing that developing country
female participation in MOOCs is low: Christensen et al. (2013)’s study of Coursera MOOCs found
that only 37% of participants from developing countries were female, in contrast with US participants
who were 49% female. Ho et al. (2015) discovered that as low as 31% of developing country
participants on HarvardX and MITx courses were female.
The completion rate for female learners is higher than that for males in both the MOOCs
(Table 1), and to check if this difference is statistically signicant we ran the Pearson’s Chi-squared
test in R using the data shown in Table 2.
Table 2: Contingency table for gender and course completion (both the MOOCs combined)
Gender Participants who did not complete the course Participants who completed the course
Female 571 712
Male 761 786
Because the p value obtained (0.014) is less than the signicance level (0.05), we can reasonably
conclude that there is an association between gender and course completion. Female learners were
more successful at completing the course. This result compares to Garrido et al. (2016), who found
that female MOOC participants in certain developing countries (Colombia, South Africa, and the
Philippines) are more likely than men to be completers.
In general, feedback from the participants suggests the course content was engaging: 90% of the
1475 respondents (in the two MOOCs combined) completely agreed that the course was relevant
to their learning needs and 83% completely agreed that the interactive e-learning format used for
the lessons was better than plain text or static content. Further, 93% completely agreed that the
weekly quizzes helped them validate their understanding of the course content. Participants also
appreciated that the lessons were downloadable and could be reviewed in the future, and the fact
that they were written with non-native speakers in mind: “The lessons were straight-forward with
simplied English which makes understanding very easy”. We must add a caveat here that nearly
everyone who gave feedback was a course completer.
In our choice of technology we took great care to ensure that the course was accessible to
researchers in countries with weak Internet connectivity. Although 32% of feedback respondents
still experienced signicant disruption to their participation because of Internet connectivity, it is
worth mentioning that among the course completers were 115 researchers from many countries
considered as fragile: the top 12 countries from a formal list (List of countries by Fragile States
Index, n.d.) plus Sierra Leone, Liberia, Myanmar, Burundi, and West Bank and Gaza/Palestine.
It is worth noting that when it came to peer assessment, 48% of respondents named this activity
as one of the most useful elements of the course and 71% either completely or partly agreed that

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they received useful feedback from their peers. Several learners expressed interest in having more
peer assessment activities. Some commented on why doing the review was helpful to them: “It
gives me the experience to be the student and the teacher as well. It validates what I have learned
and I share that learning to my colleagues’. Others said they beneted from the feedback they
received: “I am satised with the assessments and I feel energised and motivated to complete my
journal paper”.
The social component of the course was driven by active forums. Of the 2830 learners in the two
MOOCs, 1088 (36%) made at least one post in the forums, and there were 9456 posts in all. This
compares favourably to other MOOCs. Hill (2013) has argued that centralised discussion forums
do not scale in MOOCs, using examples such as the rst edX MOOC where forums were used only
by 3% of the learners (Breslow et al., 2013) and the rst Vanderbilt MOOCs where forum participation
ranged from 4% to 22% (Bruff, 2013).
Feedback for the social component was positive: 63% completely agreed that they learnt new
things from peers on the forums, with 23% partly agreeing; 45% thought that the forums were one
of the most useful elements of the course; 54% planned to stay in touch with other participants after
the course; and 19% reported that they had already started discussions with other participants about
possible research collaboration, showing the strong social connections that had been established.
The level of participation and interaction was praised: “The large volume of participation in itself
was a very good thing” and “I thoroughly enjoyed how interactive the course was, particularly the
discussion forums”.
To see how forum participation inuenced success on the course, we put together the data shown
in Table 3.
Table 3: Contingency table for forum posts and course completion (both the MOOCs combined)
No. of forum posts Participants who did not complete
the course
Participants who completed the
course
Zero 1157 665
One or more 175 833
Only 36% of the learners who made zero posts (665 out of 1822) completed the course, in stark
contrast to 83% of those who made at least one post (833 out of 1008). Unsurprisingly, this difference
is statistically signicant (p < 2.2e-16; Pearson’s Chi-squared test). Both men and women were
almost equally likely to participate in the forums: 35% and 36% of the female and male learners,
respectively, made at least one post.
It seems reasonable to attribute the success of the discussion forums to the strong teacher
presence provided by the team of guest facilitators. In both the MOOCs, the ratio of the number of
learners’ posts to the guest facilitators’ posts was encouraging (Table 4).
Table 4: Count of forum posts (both the MOOCs combined)
Course No. of guest
facilitators
(% women)
No. of countries
represented by
guest facilitators
(women)
No. of guest
facilitators’ posts
(% women)
No. of learners’
posts
(% women)
Ratio of learners’
to guest
facilitators’ posts
MOOC #1 18 (39%) 13 (7) 796 (22%) 4002 (44%) 5.03
MOOC #2 20 (50%) 16 (8) 1073 (45%) 5454 (39%) 5.08

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Feedback on the guest facilitator input was positive: 61% completely agreed that guest facilitator
posts in the forums “contributed signicantly to my knowledge” and 23% partly agreed. One participant
commented that “It doesn’t seem like self-learning at all, thanks to the easy to use features, design
and amazing level of interactions. The replies by guest facilitators is a course in itself”.
The facilitator panel discussion video we included in the middle of MOOC #2 was also well
received: “It was nice to put faces and voices to some of the facilitators which gave me a sense of
nearness”.
Early results from a follow-up survey
We administered a follow-up survey to the 596 completers of MOOC #1 ten months after the course
ended to nd out if they had achieved success in what the course had trained them for, that is,
writing and publishing papers. We report below the results from an initial analysis of the data.
The 284 survey respondents reported having published 148 journal articles after the course, and
74% of the respondents who managed to publish a paper in the time elapsed felt that the course
“helped a lot” with their publishing endeavours. Some expanded on their responses, revealing that
the course provided a boost in condence to write up and submit their paper:
· “The course has helped me to have self-condence in scientic writing. After the course,
I wrote two papers and both are already published. Now, I am preparing for another one!”
· “Before the online training, I had carried out my eldwork but had been unable to consolidate
it into a report or publication. However, after the training I acquired condence in writing
and within two months, I was able to submit a manuscript. So far I have been able to publish
2 papers in peer refereed journals.”
Although female learners were more successful in completing the course, better performance on a
training programme does not necessarily translate into better post-training success. While 46% of
male respondents have published at least one paper after the course, only 36% of women have
done so.
We plan to do an in-depth analysis in the near future to compare the participants’ post-course
publication success with baseline data from the background information form and to understand the
reasons for the gendered difference in success.
Conclusion
Although MOOCs are now commonplace, the literature review we conducted revealed a lack of
recognised models for developing such courses specically for the context and needs of developing
countries. We used Garrison’s Community of Inquiry model and our experience of working in Africa
and Asia to guide us in our design decisions and, hopefully, create an engaging and social learning
experience. Below, we reect on the strengths, challenges, and limitations of our work.
Strengths of our approach
The completion rate of 58% in MOOC #2 can be considered high in the MOOC context. This may
be partly because developing country learners are more likely to complete MOOCs (Garrido et al.,
2016), but we also believe that two critical factors contributed to the high completion rate in both
the MOOCs we offered: (1) we designed the course for a specic target audience, keeping in mind
their expectations and constraints; and (2) the pedagogical model we adopted helped us develop
learning activities in such a way that deep learning and meaning-making were facilitated through
structured social interaction and driven by the strong presence of expert facilitators. These factors
may be largely responsible for the following positive outcomes:

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1. The evaluation results from both the MOOCs show that female researchers were not only
well represented among the course participants but also more successful at completing the
course. Therefore, this MOOC approach to CPD training is encouraging from a gender equity
perspective.
2. By tapping into our network of experts, providing them with clear guidelines that made guest
facilitation an interesting activity (without excessive responsibility on any single guest facilita-
tor), and incentivising the work of facilitation through certicates and badges, we were able
to provide a healthy level of teacher presence on the MOOCs without incurring any nancial
cost.
3. The more structured social interaction in MOOC #2 may have contributed to the improved
completion rate compared to MOOC #1. Because the forum for each course topic was opened
in sync with the relevant course material, the forum posts seemed to be of higher quality than
in MOOC #1. Guest facilitators who served on both the MOOCs observed that in MOOC #2
learners were asking more thoughtful questions upon reading the lessons, rather than over-
loading the forums without prior preparation.
4. A substantial number of participants were engaged enough in the course to commit to peer
assessment activities, which contained cognitive and social learning aspects. The task was
designed to relate directly to CPD in that it modelled a real-life episode participants would be
likely to face: journal peer review. Some participants reported that the activity actually gave
them condence to submit their research to a journal.
Challenges and limitations
Taking stock of our MOOC approach and results, we have identied some key challenges and
limitations.
1. It has been difcult to collect feedback from those who did not complete the course, so we
do not have a good understanding of why 40% to 50% of learners dropped out of the course
after making a start on it. Perhaps following up with them in a personalised way and arrang-
ing phone interviews will provide useful information.
2. The peer assessment activities did not suit everybody. The majority of the course completers
(79%) in the two MOOCs participated in both the submission and assessment phases of at
least one peer assessment activity (and thus received a “merit” grade instead of the basic
“pass”), but there was often confusion about how this activity worked. The out-of-the-box
functionality of the Moodle “workshop” tool is not as intuitive as it could be. There were many
requests for deadline extensions which we could not offer because of the timed phases of
the activity (submission, assessment, closure). Others have commented that strict deadlines
in MOOCs fail to account for developing country problems such as intermittent Internet and
electricity (Bali, 2014). Hopefully, our decision to make this an optional but recommended
activity partly addresses this issue. We are also looking into other tools for peer assessment
that can be integrated in a Moodle course.
3. Initial analysis of the follow-up survey of MOOC #1 reveals that women do not seem to have
achieved as much success as men in terms of papers published. This indicates that some
kind of gendered intervention may be necessary beyond training to support women in achiev-
ing impact, at least for the context in which we work.
4. Certain learner groups may be less successful in completing our MOOC than others. We plan
to carry out a detailed analysis to identify these learner groups and to ascertain what can be
done to improve the course outcomes on the whole and for different learner groups.

55
A MOOC approach for training researchers in developing countries
Open Praxis, vol. 9 issue 1, January–March 2017, pp. 45–57
We intend to continue using the pedagogical model described in this paper for our MOOCs in the
future, and we shall use data from learning analytics, learner feedback, and impact evaluation to
improve our course design and delivery. We believe that the MOOC approach reported in this paper
may be suitable for providing CPD training in other topics that are in high demand in the developing
world.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Ruth Bottomley and Julie Walker of INASP who helped develop the strategy
behind the MOOC approach reported here, and all the guest facilitators who played a vital role in
these courses. We also thank the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) for funding INASP’s AuthorAID
project, which includes the MOOCs described here.
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