DanMOOC: Enhancing content and social interaction in MOOCs with synchronized commenting

Abstract

To enhance interactions between learners, instructors, and content for MOOC courses, this study purposes a new video lecturing interface that embeds synchronized discussions and notes anchored to the video timeline. The design concept was evaluated with 4 MOOC instructors, 8 teaching assistants, and 7 learners using a prototype. Most participants agreed that the design would enhance learner-content, learner-learner, and learner-instructor interactions, and may further improve learning performance, satisfactions, and may decrease dropout rate. However, the form of presenting discussions and possibly unrelated content may distract learners, and the design requires further improvement.