Harvard School of Business Professor Clayton Christensen has predicted disruption in higher education in the same way that it has happened in industries. The culprit? The modern information and communication technologies. In education, it is also known as online learning or e-learning.

Online learning has redefined the way teaching and learning is done. It has rendered the brick and mortar-based education somehow irrelevant when it comes to authentic and context-based learning. It has become more appropriate when it comes to meeting the need for continuing education of professionals so they can keep up with the changing skill requirements of industries and demands of their professions. Online learning, specifically distance e-learning (DeL), has turned inclusion to the system of formal education one notch higher.

Then came the Massive Open Online Course popularly known as MOOC.

A blog posted in 2008 mentioned that it was George Siemens who first coined the word “MOOC” to describe what he and Stephen Downes were doing (Cormier, 2008); a course which is free, online, and can accommodate as many students as there can possibly be. The learners’ limitations had become MOOCs’ weakest link.

Two years after the declaration of the year of the MOOC in 2012, we do not even have to say what M-O-O-C means. It has become a word by itself to mean an online course that is free for everyone or anyone interested to learn about the topic. The mere mention of MOOC will bring to mind Coursera, edX, and Udacity. If one wants to describe what MOOC is or show an example, the reference point will be Coursera. Other players had entered the arena but they were not able to make a significant impact when it comes to name recall.

Imagine this scenario:

If a simple online learning that still has all the trappings of conventional education (e.g., expensive,  schedule-based, and qualifications-based program admission), had already disrupted education, how is it now with all these talks of openness and MOOC invasion? It was flipped upside down!

 With MOOC providing opportunity and venue for inclusiveness and ubiquity, the world’s conventional system of education has been challenged. It was a revolution not from below but from among the ranks of academic institutions themselves. Those from below, especially the lifelong learners, seized the opportunity which hastened the dawning of the new era in education.

For many stakeholders, MOOC is a wanted disruption. It does not have a blueprint which directs the path that it will take; instead it has been and is taking a life of its own—the life shaped or being shaped by those who recognized the inclusivity and took it upon themselves to be part of the making of a history in whatever capacity.

It started in 2011 from an email invitation to participate in a MOOC. Being part of a distance e-learning university, the interest and decision to join was prompted by the desire to know what exactly this MOOC is and how it is done. The email digests of the class postings received everyday and participating in online discussions seemed to be not too different from what UP Open University (UPOU) is doing—except for the fact that the course is free.

Earlier than that, there had already been talks at the university about opening access to the modules developed and are being used for the courses. Bits and pieces of arguments and counter arguments can be gleaned in the minutes of various meetings, especially along the line of making UPOU courses 100% online to mark UP’s Centennial Year in 2008.

The 100% online courses happened; the openness came one step at a time but it did happen all the same.

In 2012, many conferences were already talking about MOOC and open educational resources (OERs) which is not at all surprising, considering that 2012 was declared as the year of the MOOC. There were big grants pouring in for this initiative and names of known universities being identified with certain courses and MOOC providers.

UPOU joined the bandwagon also in 2012 with the birth of uLearn Project which was inspired by talks and presentations in that year’s World Conference of the International Council of Distance Education (ICDE). uLearn Project was envisioned to carry all MOOC initiatives of UPOU. It was all exploratory; it was all done in the context of research and finding the fit between MOOC and the mission and vision of UPOU. The journey was scary but exciting at the same time for it was bringing us to something new and unexplored; the scary part was that the name and reputation of the university was at stake. It was the same feeling when the university decided to go online in 2001, a big leap from the traditional way of doing distance education.

The tension between living up to its name of being open and the pull of the long tradition of exclusiveness in UP was eased by MOOC. It provided the handle or the framework under which the university can operate: quality based on a sound pedagogical framework and openness in the context of UPOU being a public and a service university. The integration of research to the initiative in order to contribute to the body of knowledge on MOOC is something that was expected from UPOU, it being a research university too. With the uLearn Project, @ral was developed, the platform for the first ever MOOC offered by UPOU, the Mobile Apps Development Using Android Platform. The term @ral was derived from the word “aral” which is the Filipino term for “study.” “A” was changed to @ to connote the digital nature of the course and the processes.  At the same time, @ral can also be interpreted as @ (at) R (register); A (and); L (learn) which briefly captures or describes what is happening in the virtual learning environment.

UPOU’s first MOOC has the following features:

• • Fourteen days after the course was opened, there were already 390 who signed up/enrolled to the course. The course ended with 727 registered learners. Part of the continuing conversation about MOOC is “When can an open online course be considered massive?” The number was pegged at 150, which was based on Dunbar’s magic number (Dunbar, 2010): Dunbar argues that we are only able to manage about 150 contacts simultaneously, our brain is simply unable to deal with more. So, a MOOC is only a MOOC if the number of participants is well over 150. Then it contains multiple overlapping communities and each individual is an active member of only some of those. And only then it becomes ‘massive’ and technology is needed to keep track of its behaviour, to help its participants, to assess their products (Sloep, 2013).

• • Enrolment to the course was open to anyone interested. There was no admission requirement, no course fee, and course sign up remained open. This made possible a more or less open schedule for learners to complete course activities. The learners were also allowed to study the materials, take the quiz and submit the assignments/activities at their own pace. The peer assessment feature of the course, however, set the limit to the open schedule of course requirements submission. Another aspect of course openness was the use of OERs.
  • The course was offered 100% online using the online platform @ral. The Learning Management System is powered by Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment (Moodle), an open source.
  • The course also has the attributes of any other courses offered by the university in the sense that it is “a coherent academic engagement with a defined set of learning outcomes” (JISC/ HESA, 2011).
  • Another course feature is linkage with the The course was developed and implemented in collaboration with Smart Communications, Inc., a leading mobile phone service provider in the country. The company has made known its interest to buy good apps which the students will develop through the course or even hire android apps developers.

The profile of the UPOU’s first MOOC learners is as follows:

Most of the students of the course were based in the Philippines as only 9% were based outside the country. This is also indicative of geographical profile of the UPOU students which can be explained by the fact that the offering of the course was advertised only through the university website. It should be noted, however, that despite this limited advertisement of the MOOC offering, more than half (52%) of the students were enrollees of an online course for the first time. The probable explanation is the dissemination  of information through word of mouth by the students of UPOU’s degree programs.

On the gender profile of the students, the majority (63%)  are male which may be due to the technical nature of the course (i.e., Android Apps Development). In terms of age, it is noteworthy to mention that almost three quarters or 75% of the students belong to the 20-40 age bracket or those who were born and grew up during the period of the rise of the Information Age, the Internet/ dot com bubble and digital globalization (Isacosta, n.d.). One can also say that this is the generation very much fascinated with and interested in gadgets and apps in the android platform. It is also worth mentioning that the youngest student is 15 years old while the oldest is 57 years old.

In terms of educational attainment, being open, the course was able to attract the range from high school graduates to those who have attained or gone through post-graduate program. Those who have completed the bachelor’s degree comprised the majority (48%)   of the students which implies the interest of this sector to learn something new that is aligned to their interest and which could also be an additional credential for future employment. It should be noted that while there are websites offering free information on android apps development, such sites do not offer certification of  what one has learned. In contrast, this course is being offered for free also by the UPOU and the seal of excellence is implied in the certificate of completion that the university gives. This could also explain the interest of many undergraduate students or those who did not or have not yet completed their bachelor’s degree. Although UPOU is a state university, it still charges fees for its courses which can be prohibitive to many who want to be part of the teaching- learning environment of the university.

UPOU’s first attempt to do its own MOOC  brought  it  face  to  face with the many concerns and issues surrounding MOOC like quality of instruction, initial investment and sustainability model, assessment considering the massive nature of enrollment, learner support model or framework (i.e., what do  the  learners  need and can the university provide it—again considering the massive enrollment?), recognition and accreditation (i.e., who will recognize the Statements of Accomplishment earned by the participants who successfully completed the course?). Added to these is the world’s perspective on MOOC which surfaced the following issues: the perceived intellectual neo-colonialism given the one-way transfer of educational materials from the rich north to the poor south (Cormier, 2008), low course completion rate (Quillen, 2013), and cheating and plagiarism (Rooney, n.d.).

The advantage of not being the first in the playing field is one gets to observe and learn from the experiences of the early birds. This provides the opportunity for reflection and to do things better. Moreover, UPOU’s more than 10 years of experience of being a distance e-learning institution provided the bits and pieces of information which, when put in their proper places, can provide the answers to most of the questions. The more than a decade of experience provided the strong foundation as UPOU journeyed on its search for its own MOOC identity: the MODeL Framework.

MODeL stands for Massive Open Distance e-Learning. It has all the other attributes of a MOOC as well as the other features of a UPOU DeL course as follows:

1.  Quality assurance framework

There are key areas and phases of MOOC development and implementation where the components of the quality framework in open and distance e-learning can be integrated. In the development and offering of the UPOU MOOC, three quality frameworks were considered (see Table 2).

Table 2. Areas/Domains/Benchmarks of quality in open and distance learning

As shown also, some aspects—those with the same color—can be found in all the three frameworks, indicating the wide acceptance of these areas as indicators of quality in ODL. These areas/domains or benchmarks were applied to the UPOU MOOC as follows:

a. The backing of an academic institution in the offering of MOOC. This is implied in the domain/benchmark institutional commitment/support; vision/mission/goal; and leadership, governance, and administration. It should be noted that in the early generation of MOOC, learners’ learning is certified by the individual professor or course. The institutional presence and backing up somehow implies that the quality standard that the university adheres to will also be applied to the MOOC which the university offers.

Specific to the MOOC on Android Apps Development, the course does not focus on the skills alone but also integrated the theoretical underpinnings for the skills. For instance, the role and position of android apps in the overall schema of the digital world was discussed as well as the characteristics of a good android app based on relevant communication and needs satisfaction theories.

b. The course development process. As in any other course at UPOU, the development of the course package for the MOOC on Android Apps Development also followed the principles of the quality circle approach. This approach consists of the integration of instructional design and pedagogically-based multimedia supplements to come up with quality course package. The material was also reviewed for correctness of content.

c. Instruction/Teaching and learning and the instructors. As in any other course, how instruction is done and who does the instruction are major quality One of the strengths and, in fact, the attraction of the early generation MOOC, is the expertise of the professor handling the course. If at all, this is the only assurance of quality of the early generation MOOC given that the professors handling the courses are from well-known universities and are the experts in their respective fields.

The only concern now is how teaching or instruction is done given the massive enrollment which also characterizes the course. Given this realization, the UPOU MOOC on Android Apps Development also subscribe to the combination of instructivism or direct instruction of the content from the teacher/expert and directing them to OERs on the topic, and connectivism and constructivism which were both facilitated through formation of online learning communities. The online learning communities also made peer assessment possible.

d. Student support services. Integration of learner support to a MOOC is also subject to debate and discussion given the large number of students enrolled in the course. In the case of the UPOU MOOC, it was just paralleled to other online courses that the university offers: some aspects are automated (e.g., automatic reply to sign-ups), provision of technical support for those who will need specific technical assistance, and assigning a portal/email address where specific inquiries can be forwarded. The technical support staff was also in charge of monitoring the course site in terms of technical requirements (e.g., upgrading the hosting services, ensuring that the site is up and accessible to the students). Aside from the two teachers of the course who monitored the discussions, quiz completion, and submissions of requirements, there were also tutors ready to assist and provide tutorial support if and when necessary. Provision of learner support is also seen to address the concern of low course completion rate.

e. In all contexts of learning, assessment has always been considered as the major consideration or area of quality. Integrated to assessment is the integrity of the process. In the case of most MOOCs, assessment is automated in consideration of the number of students. For the UPOU MOOC, the following assessment mechanisms have been integrated into the course:

• • • i. Automated assessment for the quizzes
    • ii. Peer assessment for the assignments
    • iii. Faculty/Tutor assessment for the final project
    • iv. If and when necessary, UPOU can also utilize its Learning and Testing Centers all over the world for assessment and ensure integrity of the process for certification purposes

f. Other considerations. While technology appears in just one framework, its importance, especially in MOOC, cannot be overemphasized. Given the large number of enrollees, there should be extra efforts to ensure that the technology support would enable the learners to have a rewarding experience. Research should also be integrated into the process to ensure continuous improvement of the initiative and for future offering of other

2.   Cheating and plagiarism

Cheating and plagiarism are not monopolies of online courses or of MOOC. In fact, it has become easier to detect cheating (e.g., copying of assignments from fellow learners) or plagiarism in this mode of instruction given the various software designed to address this concern or even just a simple search using various search engines. The real challenge is the design of learning and assessment so that learners will be forced towards the direction of reflecting, contextualizing, and step-by-step knowledge building.

3.  Initial investment for course development

In offering programs in distance education, the initial cost is quite high since the larger part of it goes to the development of the course material or package. For credit courses where enrollment requires a fee, there is always the promise of recovering the initial cost. In the case of MOOC, however, there has to be another model to cover the cost of preparing for the course offering.

Partnership has figured prominently in UPOU’s 19 years of democratizing access to quality education. Through those years, UPOU has partnered with more than 100 organizations, universities, and individuals in the course of its pursuit of education inclusion. This observation attests to the fact that there are many like-minded organizations and individuals who share UPOU’s mission and vision and who are willing to share their resources to bring us nearer to the goal.

The same strategy was adopted for UPOU’s first MOOC. UPOU has partnered with SMART Communications, Inc., one of the biggest, if not the biggest telecommunications company in the Philippines. Smart Communications, Inc. provided the subject expert who took charge of the course development. The UPOU implementing unit for MOOCs, on the other hand, was also given a grant to undertake MOOC research. Such model can also be explored for  other  UPOU MODeL courses. The academe-industry partnership can be maximized to offer courses to professionals that would address their continuing education need.

4.  A MOOC from a developing country

MOOCs are often associated with the well-known universities (e.g., Coursera) with Stanford University since the two professors who started Coursera were from there (www.coursera.org) and edX with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (www.edx.org), the UPOU MOOC can be considered as a form of South-South cooperation and address the concern of the perceived intellectual neo-colonialism given the one-way transfer of educational materials from the rich north to the poor south (Ryvard, 2013).

Online learning, particularly MOOC, has disrupted education but it turned out to be a wanted disruption to many. UPOU’s own journey in the offering of its MOOC has led to its search for the answers  to the questions and mechanisms to address the various concerns surrounding MOOC which eventually led to the development of its own MOOC framework: the MODeL or the Massive Open Distance eLearning. The open nature of MOOC also provides opportunities for continuous development and reshaping for it to genuinely realize what it had aimed for right from the start: inclusion in education.