It’s reality! The MOOC was approved and we are in the process of registering folks. Let’s see if I can recap the happenings. After several meetings with MSU support staff…this really is a team effort and I want to give a shout out to the dedicated professionals who have believed in this project….a contract was signed between the institution and the learning management system folks, D2L MOOC. Once that was in place, we held a conference call to begin finalizing the various components of the MOOC. We were able to put our brand on the course, received assistance with the final wording of the registration page, adding additional tools to the course and more. There is a course D2L manager and technician on the LMS side and we have support folks at MSU. Everyone has been gracious and professional as we muddle our way through this challenging process. The MSSE Program created an advertising brochure and once registration was in place, created a link to the registration page. The registration page was opened on a Friday and by Tuesday afternoon, nearly 80 people had registered. The advertising was done through listserves, Facebook and Twitter announcements. Great care has been taken to make the registration and login process as self-explanatory as possible. Since this is FREE, minimal student support will be provided. I hid all pages of the course expect the NEWS section which shows up on the course homepage, so that is all that students after they complete registration. The NEWS section contains as many of the FAQs we could anticipate with a message telling students that questions would be answered when the course opens and until then, no outside email questions related to the course would be answered. On the registration page and in the NEWS is a reminder of the course opening date, which comes just over two weeks after registration opened. I’m continuing to make subtle changes to the course as new information and ideas are shared by the team. I’ve chosen to NOT open the entire course at the beginning, but will open each week on that week. Opened course pages will not be closed, so students can always look backward, but not work ahead. The biggest question at this point is how to create discussion groups. I’m thinking of limiting discussion groups to 10 participants each and having them self select into a group. I hope to accomplish that during the first week. I’m using podcasts to introduce procedures and also highlight each week’s content. We are now in that never-never land that always precedes the opening of courses. Hopefully we’ll be ready when we make the course live in just over a week.
