Personalisation of MOOCs - The State of the Art

Researchers in the field of educational technology are paying huge attention to the widespread adoption of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the study of learning online. MOOCs are discussed in many angles including pedagogy, learning sustainability, and business model. However, there are very few discussions around MOOCs personalisation. In this paper, it is aimed to examine and analyse the literature on personalisation of MOOCs to identify the needs, the current states and efforts to personalise learning in MOOCs. The findings denote that the pedagogical design of MOOCs is currently insufficient due to massive and geographically dispersed learners with diverse educational backgrounds, learning requirements and motivations. Many believe that personalisation could address this lacking in MOOCs. Among the most popular services being proposed or implemented in the literature are personalised learning path, personalised assessment and feedback, personalised forum thread and recommendation service for related learning materials or learning tasks.