Creating Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Every teacher at HSE has the opportunity to create their own massive open online courses (MOOCs), which are published on such leading platforms as Coursera or Russia’s National Open Online Education Platform (NOEP). When developing your online courses, you may encounter many issues or have questions about their contents or how they should be presented. For instance, how to structure a course’s materials in such a way so that it is most effective for students? Or, what’s the best way to present or cite useful resources? 

After an application for an online course has been approved, HSE’s eLearning Office will offer support at all stages of the course’s development by providing methodological recommendations, consultations on technical issues, and support when material needs to be changed or augmented. The eLearning Office also analyses data on the results of a course’s initial launch. 

Here, you will find guidelines on how to develop online courses, as well as learn which steps need to be taken in order to move from an initial concept for a course to its successful launch on an online platform. 

Stages of MOOC development:

1. Draw up an application for the development of an online course; 

2. Receive approval for the application from the head of the relevant faculty or HSE subdivision; 

3. Receive approval for the application from the HSE Vice Rector and the Head of the eLearning Office; 

4. Commence joint work on the course with the HSE eLearning Office.
   
   

Step-by-step preparation of online courses:

1. Write up an application for a new online course, which should include a description of the course’s concept along with the following points:

• name of course;
• full name of the course’s author(s) and contact information; 
• language of the course: for Coursera – Russian/English; for NOEP– Russian;
• a short description of the course’s concept and its target audience; 
• the approximate size and weekly plan of the course (i.e., 1 lecture = 1 week on an online platform, and the overall coursework in hours); 
• additional information, which you consider important for the application. 

* Application size – no more than 1 page

2.  Receive approval for the application from the head of the relevant faculty or HSE subdivision.

3. After the dean of the relevant faculty/head of the subdivision approves the application to develop an online course, the application shall be forwarded via e-mail to HSE Vice Rector Sergey Roshchin, with a copy to the Head of the HSE eLearning Office Evegnia Kulik, as well as the head of your subdivision.

4. If the application to develop the online course is approved, the eLearning Office staff will get in contact with you via e-mail to organize an initial meeting, where you will receive all necessary instructions and agree upon a timeline for the course’s creation.

5. At the starting stage of the course’s development, the teacher will elaborate its structure, write up assignments and prepare all materials, which are necessary for recording video content. The eLearning Office’s specialists will provide consultations on all issues regarding content creation, as well as recommend instruments and methods to make the online presentation of the course more effective and assess the learners’ progress.

6. The next step is studio work. The staff of the HSE eLearning Office will try to ensure a comfortable and creative atmosphere, as well as consult on an entire range of technical options and approaches, which the teacher may use depending on the specifics of his/her content. They will also advise on ways of making the process more effective and straight-forward.

7. At the end of the production stage, the developed content shall be uploaded to the relevant platform, customized, tested and prepared for launch.

An assistant may carry out technical work to upload materials, customize the course and provide support via the platform. Every HSE teacher has the option of bringing an assistant into his/her team. You can learn more about this from the eLearning Office at the kick-off meeting.

8. Once the course is ready and has been posted on the platform, the teacher, with the assistant, may help learners to get acquainted with the materials, as well as answer any questions left in the forum section.

9. Based on the results of the course’s initial launch, the HSE eLearning Office’s psychometrics experts will prepare an analysis, and, if necessary, draw up recommendations on how to adjust or improve the materials. This stage is the final phase in the teacher’s involvement to create a new online course. Henceforward, the course will be released regularly, depending on the chosen platform, and provided with support by the assistant.

10. If course materials need to be updated, the teacher should contact the HSE eLearning Office. Depending on the extent and the type of updates necessary, this issue shall be settled on an individual basis with the Head of the eLearning Office.

All questions or enquiries about online courses may be sent to coursera@hse.ru or  openedu@hse.ru