title: Structural limitations of learning in a crowd: communication vulnerability and information diffusion in MOOCs.
abstract: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) bring together a global crowd of thousands of learners for several weeks or months. In theory, the openness and scale of MOOCs can promote iterative dialogue that facilitates group cognition and knowledge construction. Using data from two successive instances of a popular business strategy MOOC, we filter observed communication patterns to arrive at the "significant" interaction networks between learners and use complex network analysis to explore the vulnerability and information diffusion potential of the discussion forums. We find that different discussion topics and pedagogical practices promote varying levels of 1) "significant" peer-to-peer engagement, 2) participant inclusiveness in dialogue, and ultimately, 3) modularity, which impacts information diffusion to prevent a truly "global" exchange of knowledge and learning. These results indicate the structural limitations of large-scale crowd-based learning and highlight the different ways that learners in MOOCs leverage, and learn within, social contexts. We conclude by exploring how these insights may inspire new developments in online education.
authors.affiliation: Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PJ, UK.
authors.forename: Nabeel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gillani
authors.affiliation: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS, UK.
authors.forename: Taha
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yasseri
authors.affiliation: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS, UK.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Eynon
authors.affiliation: Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, 1 St. Giles, Oxford OX1 3JS, UK.
authors.forename: Isis
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hjorth
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D020375:Education, Distance / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D020407:Internet; D019359:Knowledge; D007858:Learning; D010379:Peer Group