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Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung Vol. 18 / Issue 1 (March 2023)
www.zfhe.at 1
Call for papers – Special issue
Massive Open Online Courses and their role in digital teaching at
universities
Editors: Markus Ebner (TU Graz), Martin Ebner (TU Graz), Stefanie Schweiger (HPI Potsdam),
Sebastian Serth (HPI Potsdam), Thomas Staubitz (HPI Potsdam)
Date of publication: March 2023
To the main topic
Massive Open Online Courses have become world-famous at the latest since Sebastian Thrun's
online course on artificial intelligence (CARSON & SCHMIDT, 2012). The possibility of making
educational content openly accessible and available on the internet at university level has led to
a surge in the number of learners, often reaching up to 100,000.
These first success stories were immediately followed by scientific studies and accompanying
research (YUAN & BOWLE, 2013; GAEBEL, 2013). The aim was to explore how collaborative
learning can work with such masses of learners or why the drop-out rate was so high at the very
first beginning (KHALIL & EBNER, 2014). In the course of time, more and more universities
began to produce such kind of online-courses and other platforms sporadically emerged. The
first courses were also developed in German-speaking countries and made available to the
general public in 2014. The field of research in the area of educational technology increasingly
began to deal with the phenomenon – whether through technical as well as pedagogical
considerations or analyses of their own practical experiences in such courses. As the market
shows, today the German-language website called MOOChub (https://moochub.org) offers over
500 online courses that learners can attend at no further cost.
Since the Covid19-pandemic, digital teaching in higher education institutions has taken on an
unintended but all in all a significant momentum (PAUSITS et al., 2021). Overnight, institutions
were forced to switch at least partly to exclusively full distance teaching. This also helped
MOOCs to gain further momentum, as it was precisely these courses that were already available
and these platforms that could already handle large masses of learners. It is now those
platforms that not only have to withstand the high frequency of use, but can also drive future
developments: Developments such as the creation of common course standards across borders,
the provision of digital certificates or common authentication procedures are just a few upcoming
challenges. The emerging debate and discussion on microcredentials is also closely linked to
MOOCs, as are the new innovative didactic scenarios such as inverse blended learning and
flipped classroom, which are suitable learning materials in the context of the prevailing teaching
and learning videos (EBNER et al., 2017).
In this call, we call to consider the topic of Massive Open Online Courses from all perspectives.
The following questions can be taken as suggestions, but are by no means exhaustive:
- We ask for experiences with the use of Massive Open Online Courses in higher
education teaching.
Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung Vol. 18 / Issue 1 (March 2023)
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- Which strategic role will freely accessible courses play in the future in the higher
education context?
- What technical developments can be expected in connection with MOOCs?
- How should the topic of MOOCs be addressed from a pedagogical perspective? Which
pedagogical questions need to be answered? Which didactical implications are
associated with MOOCS?
- How do MOOCs influence the Bologna Process or the continuing education sector (e.g.
microcredentials)?
- Which role do MOOCs play in the third mission?
- Which specific content can be particularly conveyed through MOOCs? What experience
and evidence-based studies are there on this?
- What influence do MOOCs have on educational equity or access to higher education?
- What are the implications of MOOCs for the function and understanding of higher
education?
We are looking forward to contributions about MOOCs and their role in higher education
teaching from as many different perspectives as possible and thus to point out their use,
development and role. Take part in the international discourse, send us your academic results
and actively help to shape this issue!
References
Carson, S. & Schmidt, J. (2012). The Massive Open Online Professor Academic Matter.
Journal of higher education, http://www.academicmatters.ca/2012/05/the-massive-open-online-
professor/
Ebner, M., Khalil, M., Schön, S., Gütl, C., Aschemann, B., Frei, W. & Röthler, D. (2017). How
Inverse Blended Learning Can Turn Up Learning with MOOCs? In Proceedings of the
International Conference MOOC-MAKER 2017. Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala, November 16–
17 (pp. 21–30).
Ebner M., Schön S. & Braun C. (2020). More Than a MOOC – Seven Learning and Teaching
Scenarios to Use MOOCs in Higher Education and Beyond. In S. Yu, M. Ally & A. Tsinakos
(eds.), Emerging Technologies and Pedagogies in the Curriculum. Bridging Human and
Machine: Future Education with Intelligence (pp. 75–87). Singapore: Springer.
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-0618-5_5
Gaebel, M. (2013). MOOCs – Massive Open Online Courses, European University Association,
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED571140
Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung Vol. 18 / Issue 1 (March 2023)
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Khalil, H. & Ebner, M. (2014). MOOCs Completion Rates and Possible Methods to Improve
Retention – A Literature Review. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational
Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2014 (pp. 1236–1244). Chesapeake, VA:
AACE.
Pausits, A., Oppl, S., Schön, S., Fellner, M., Campbell, F. J. & Dobiasch, M. (2021). Distance
Learning an österreichischen Universitäten und Hochschulen im Sommersemester 2020 und
Wintersemester 2020/21. https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/dam/jcr:3db6ff5e-68f7-43d0-a31f-
0e667d258d69/210701_WF048_21%20-
Distance%20Learning%20an%20Unis%20und%20HS%20im%20SS20%20und%20WS20_21_b
f_FINALE_VERSION.pdf
Yuan, L. & Bowel, S. (2013). MOOCs and Open Education: Implications for Higher Education,
https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/619735/1/MOOCs-and-Open-Education.pdf
Guidelines regarding the journal
The ZFHE is a peer-reviewed online journal that publishes scientific contributions of practical rel-
evance concerning current higher education development issues. The focus is on didactical,
structural, and cultural developments in teaching and learning. Topics that are innovative and
still regarded as open in respect of their design options are preferred.
The ZFHE is published by a consortium of European researchers and funded by the Austrian
Ministry for Science, Research and Economics. For more information, see https://www.zfhe.at.
Submission information
German or English contributions may be submitted in two possible formats:
Research contributions should meet the following criteria. The paper:
addresses a systemic question in transdisciplinary, interdisciplinary or subject-specific
contexts;
has a research gap as its starting point;
is extensively embedded in current scholarly discourse;
has a robust methodological approach;
includes reflection on the author’s own work;
explains the research methodology;
employs a method that is suitable for answering the research question;
presents the scientific discourse in a reflective manner;
makes a clearly recognizable contribution to answering the research question or to the
research discussion;
Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung Vol. 18 / Issue 1 (March 2023)
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consistently follows relevant citation rules (APA style, current edition);
comprises between 20,000 and 33,000 characters (with spaces, including cover page,
bibliography and author information).
Research-driven development contributions should meet the following criteria. The paper:
features a higher education development perspective with a sound research base;
discusses and differentiates a systemic problem in teaching development;
is an academically grounded "institutional research" contribution;
is supported by a literature review;
meaningfully addresses the interaction between science and praxis and/or the link
between the two poles of "research and development"
consistently follows pertinent citation rules (APA style, current edition);
comprises between 20,000 and 33,000 characters (with spaces, including cover page,
bibliography and author information).
Development contributions should meet the following criteria. The paper:
deals with a concrete problem in higher education development in the (author’s) higher
education institution;
addresses a practical need;
is embedded in the scientific discussion and literature (without claiming to provide an
overview of the literature);
offers suggestions for teaching and university development, with recommendations for
action (if applicable);
offers a systematic and transparent discussion (e.g. no incomprehensible references to
specifics or details in a field of practice);
elaborates on generalisable aspects relevant to theoretical development;
addresses considerations related to the transfer to practice;
mentions possibilities for further research;
consistently follows relevant citation rules (APA style, current edition);
comprises between 20,000 and 33,000 characters (with spaces, including cover page,
bibliography and author information).
Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung Vol. 18 / Issue 1 (March 2023)
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Submission and review schedule
October 28, 2022 – Submission deadline for complete articles: Please upload your
contribution(s) to the ZFHE journal system (https://www.zfhe.at) in the corresponding section
(research contributions, research-driven development contributions, development contributions)
of ZFHE 18/1 issue in anonymous format. To do so, you must first register as an author in the
system.
January 13, 2023 – Feedback/Reviews: Scientific contributions and workshop reports are
evaluated in a double-blind process (see below).
February 3, 2023 – Revision deadline: Where necessary, contributions may be revised
according to feedback and recommendations from the reviews.
March 2022 – Online publication: In March 2022, the finalized contributions are published
under https://www.zfhe.at and also made available in print.
Review Process
All submitted contributions will be examined in a double-blind peer review process to guarantee
scientific quality. The editors of the current issue propose the reviewers for the respective theme
and allocate individual contributions to the reviewers; they also determine which contributions
will be accepted. The selection of reviewers and the review process for each thematic issue are
always supervised by a member of the editorial board.
Formatting and submission
In order to save valuable time with the formatting of the contributions, we kindly ask that all
authors work with the template from the beginning. The template can be downloaded from the
ZFHE website under the following links:
https://www.zfhe.at/userupload/ZFHE_18-1_TEMPLATE_de.docx
https://www.zfhe.at/userupload/ZFHE_18-1_TEMPLATE_en.docx
Since we must be able to edit the texts, they must be submitted unlocked/unprotected in in Mi-
crosoft Word (.doc), Office Open XML (.docx), Open Document Text (.odt) or Plain Text (.txt) for-
mat. Please do not submit any PDF files! Submissions in the “Scientific Contribution” and “Work-
shop Report” categories must first be made in anonymous format in order to guarantee the dou-
ble-blind review process. Please remove all references to the author(s) of the document (includ-
ing in the document properties!). Upon a positive review result, this information will be re-in-
serted.
Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung Vol. 18 / Issue 1 (March 2023)
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Questions?
If you have any questions regarding the content of the issue, please contact Markus Ebner
(markus.ebner@tugraz.at), Martin Ebner (martin.ebner@tugraz.at), Stefanie Schweiger
(stefanie.schweiger@hpi.de), Sebastian Serth (sebastian.serth@hpi.de), Thomas Staubitz
(thomas.staubitz@hpi.de).
For technical and organizational questions, please contact Elisabeth Stadler (office@zfhe.at).
We look forward to your submissions!
Markus Ebner, Martin Ebner, Stefanie Schweiger, Sebastian Serth & Thomas Staubitz