Multilitteratus Incognitus
Traversing the path of the doctoral degree
speedwalking the lit review
26-10-2017, 13:37 detail, dissertation, PhD, research PermalinkThe lit-review (lit-review 2.0 as a dub it) has been going from a crawl to, a walk, to hopefully hitting speedwalking pace. Lit-review 1.0 was last fall, which was a little too broad to be fit for purpose, and it really explored a lot of themes that might be worthwhile keeping in mind as things to discuss in the discussion portion of the dissertation - you know, after I pass the proposal defense, and collect and analyze data - so it's not all that useful now.
Because I am working on collaboration as a topic, and more specifically collaboration borne out of participation in a specific set of MOOCs, I am looking some literature on MOOCs and some literature on collaboration. After I finished reading a handful of books on collaboration, I've made my way to academic articles on MOOCs (before I go back to collaboration discussed in academic articles). It's been a couple of years since I've sat down to make a concerted effort to read articles on MOOCs (given that most of my spare time was spent on class stuff). As I am reading these newer articles on MOOCs (2014 and beyond), the obligatory 'historical' introductions (you know, where MOOCs came from), seem to be all over the place. Some describe them in ways that closely tie them to the OCW movement. Others skip everything and start with Thrun and Koehler. Others point to Siemens and other Canadian colleagues with MOOCs like CCK. Yet others find imaginative ways to have some sort of combination of these†.
Despite these (minor?) issues in their introduction or background sections, these articles made it through the gauntlet of the peer review and go published, so they are now part of the research record. It's not that I am hugely bothered by things that I view as historical inaccuracies in these articles. After all, the advice given to me by my mentors is to basically go to the original citation and look up the fact and underlying reasons there, instead of citing someone who cited the info. It's a good point, and it's good to basically double check your "facts", but it really adds to the workload if you can't trust what you're reading in an article. Does the level of detail in a literature review reflect the level of care taken to craft the methods section, data analysis, and conclusions? Maybe it doesn't; maybe the introduction is just a short afterthought after all else is done, I don't know.
As I go through this pile of academic articles I am struck by the two warring sides in my mind. One side wants me (the completionist daemon) to read every single word and analyze every single sentence of an article. OK, maybe it's not painstaking analysis, but really do give each article a good portion of my mindshare in order to make sure that I am correctly getting out of the article what the authors intended me to get out of the article. On the other side of things, I am looking at the large (digital) pile of papers to read and a more pragmatic daemon is pointing me toward more efficient‡. The efficiency that my pragmatic daemon advocates for is skimming introductory and background sessions, and really just focusing on data analysis and conclusions, so basically make an assumption that the journal editors and peer reviewers have done a good enough job so that I can reasonably assured that what I am reading is worthwhile♠. The problem with the pragmatic daemon's approach is that in the haste to be more efficient (just the findings, ma'am) I might be making the same errors as those folks that make me roll my eyes with their (minor?) issues in their introductory and background sections (errors I don't want to make). I am sure that there is a good middle ground, which I am intent on finding before I am done with this proposal...
How is your dissertation process going? If you are done with your doctorate, what were your daemons?
DIGITAL MARGINALIA
† maybe it's my own bias as a MOOC follower since 2010(ish) but the only correct version of MOOC history seems to be CCK08 as the start. Yes the open movement probably influenced it a lot, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it a descendant of OCW.
‡ imagine air quotes around this word.
♠ not counting predatory journals here.
As I go through this pile of academic articles I am struck by the two warring sides in my mind. One side wants me (the completionist daemon) to read every single word and analyze every single sentence of an article. OK, maybe it's not painstaking analysis, but really do give each article a good portion of my mindshare in order to make sure that I am correctly getting out of the article what the authors intended me to get out of the article. On the other side of things, I am looking at the large (digital) pile of papers to read and a more pragmatic daemon is pointing me toward more efficient‡. The efficiency that my pragmatic daemon advocates for is skimming introductory and background sessions, and really just focusing on data analysis and conclusions, so basically make an assumption that the journal editors and peer reviewers have done a good enough job so that I can reasonably assured that what I am reading is worthwhile♠. The problem with the pragmatic daemon's approach is that in the haste to be more efficient (just the findings, ma'am) I might be making the same errors as those folks that make me roll my eyes with their (minor?) issues in their introductory and background sections (errors I don't want to make). I am sure that there is a good middle ground, which I am intent on finding before I am done with this proposal...
How is your dissertation process going? If you are done with your doctorate, what were your daemons?
DIGITAL MARGINALIA
† maybe it's my own bias as a MOOC follower since 2010(ish) but the only correct version of MOOC history seems to be CCK08 as the start. Yes the open movement probably influenced it a lot, but I wouldn't go as far as to call it a descendant of OCW.
‡ imagine air quotes around this word.
♠ not counting predatory journals here.
Comments
It's the end of the MOOC as we know it, and I feel...
16-10-2017, 11:00 dissertation, learning, monetization, MOOC, open, PhD, registration, xMOOC Permalink...ambivalent? I am not sure if ambivalence is the word I am going for because I am getting hints of nostalgia too. Perhaps though I should take a step back, and start from the beginning.
This past weekend two things happened:
The first thing is that I've completed reading full books as part of my literature review for my dissertation, and I have moved onto academic articles, articles I've been collecting on MOOCs and collaboration in general. While MOOCs aren't really the main focus of my dissertation study, they do form the basis, or rather the campgrounds on which the collaborative activities occurred on, and it's those collaborative activities I want to examine. This review of MOOC articles (while still relatively in the early stages) made me reflect back on my own MOOC experiences since 2011.
The second thing is that I received a message from FutureLearn which was a little jarring and made me ponder. Here is a screenshot:
My usual process, when it comes to MOOCs these days, is to go through the course listings of the usual suspects (coursera, edx, futurelearn) and sign-up for courses that seem interesting. Then, as time permits I go through these courses. I usually carve out an hour every other Friday to do some MOOCing these days since most of my "free" time is spent on dissertation-related pursuits. It would not be an understatement to say that I have quite a few courses that are not completed yet (even though I registered for them about six months ago). What can I say? I find a ton of things interesting.
If you're new to MOOCs you might say "well, it was a free course, and now it's going back into paid land - you should have done it while it was available". Perhaps you're right, perhaps not. For a MOOC old-timer, like me (ha!), this type of message is really disheartening, and it really speaks quite well to the co-opting and transmogrification of the MOOC term (and concept) and making something that is not really recognizable when compared to the original MOOCs of 2008-2012; or perhaps it's a bit even like an erasure - erasing it form the past, but luckily at least articles exist to prove that it existed, and cMOOC is still recognized as a concept.
I am convinced that platforms like coursera and futurelearn can no longer be considered MOOC platforms, and should be referred to as either a learning management system (which they are), or online learning platform. Over the past few years things that seemed like a given for an open learning platform are starting to not be there. First the 5Rs started being not applicable. You couldn't always revise or remix materials that you found on these platforms...but you could download copies of the materials so that you could retain your own copy, and this meant that you could potentially reuse and redistribute. Redistribution was the next freedom that went, and after that was reuse. You could still download materials though (at least on coursera and edx). Then a coursera redesign made video download not an option... (still an option in edx, not sure if it was an option in futurelearn), and now courses are becoming time-gated... argh.
The certificate of completion was an interesting concept - a nice gift from the people who offered the course if you jumped through their hoops to do the course as they intended, but it was really only valuable when it was free of cost. This freebie has also been lost (not a great loss since it doesn't really mean much - at least not yet).
All of this closing off of designs and materials (closing in a variety of ways) makes me long for the days gone by, day not long ago, and MOOCs only about 10 years in the past. Although, I suppose in EdTech terms 10 years might as well be centuries.
I do wonder when might be a good time to reclaim the name and offer up connectivist courses again - or perhaps it's time to kill the term (wonder what Dave thinks of this ;-) ), and create something that doesn't have such commercial interests infused into it right now.
Thoughts?
This past weekend two things happened:
The first thing is that I've completed reading full books as part of my literature review for my dissertation, and I have moved onto academic articles, articles I've been collecting on MOOCs and collaboration in general. While MOOCs aren't really the main focus of my dissertation study, they do form the basis, or rather the campgrounds on which the collaborative activities occurred on, and it's those collaborative activities I want to examine. This review of MOOC articles (while still relatively in the early stages) made me reflect back on my own MOOC experiences since 2011.
The second thing is that I received a message from FutureLearn which was a little jarring and made me ponder. Here is a screenshot:
My usual process, when it comes to MOOCs these days, is to go through the course listings of the usual suspects (coursera, edx, futurelearn) and sign-up for courses that seem interesting. Then, as time permits I go through these courses. I usually carve out an hour every other Friday to do some MOOCing these days since most of my "free" time is spent on dissertation-related pursuits. It would not be an understatement to say that I have quite a few courses that are not completed yet (even though I registered for them about six months ago). What can I say? I find a ton of things interesting.
If you're new to MOOCs you might say "well, it was a free course, and now it's going back into paid land - you should have done it while it was available". Perhaps you're right, perhaps not. For a MOOC old-timer, like me (ha!), this type of message is really disheartening, and it really speaks quite well to the co-opting and transmogrification of the MOOC term (and concept) and making something that is not really recognizable when compared to the original MOOCs of 2008-2012; or perhaps it's a bit even like an erasure - erasing it form the past, but luckily at least articles exist to prove that it existed, and cMOOC is still recognized as a concept.
I am convinced that platforms like coursera and futurelearn can no longer be considered MOOC platforms, and should be referred to as either a learning management system (which they are), or online learning platform. Over the past few years things that seemed like a given for an open learning platform are starting to not be there. First the 5Rs started being not applicable. You couldn't always revise or remix materials that you found on these platforms...but you could download copies of the materials so that you could retain your own copy, and this meant that you could potentially reuse and redistribute. Redistribution was the next freedom that went, and after that was reuse. You could still download materials though (at least on coursera and edx). Then a coursera redesign made video download not an option... (still an option in edx, not sure if it was an option in futurelearn), and now courses are becoming time-gated... argh.
The certificate of completion was an interesting concept - a nice gift from the people who offered the course if you jumped through their hoops to do the course as they intended, but it was really only valuable when it was free of cost. This freebie has also been lost (not a great loss since it doesn't really mean much - at least not yet).
All of this closing off of designs and materials (closing in a variety of ways) makes me long for the days gone by, day not long ago, and MOOCs only about 10 years in the past. Although, I suppose in EdTech terms 10 years might as well be centuries.
I do wonder when might be a good time to reclaim the name and offer up connectivist courses again - or perhaps it's time to kill the term (wonder what Dave thinks of this ;-) ), and create something that doesn't have such commercial interests infused into it right now.
Thoughts?
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