Transforming OER: Repurposing MOOCs to Microlearning Using Pressbooks

Key stakeholders

The stakeholders directly involved with this project were a small team within the Education Strategy portfolio at CDU. There was strategic support from the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Education Strategy, and some liaison with subject matter experts who were involved in the original MOOCs, where possible.

The small project team consisted of three people:

• Project Lead/Learning Designer, Alison Lockley (case study author)
• Learning Designer, Karin Pfister
• Learning Resource Developer, Erin Lawson.

Background

CDU strives to be both a user and contributor of OER through approaches to education and sharing of information, with “openness” supported by strategic values and principles. CDU joined the early MOOC movement with three courses developed and offered to the public between 2013 and 2017. Like other MOOCs, they offered high-quality, accessible learning opportunities to a global audience (Lee et. al, 2023), and provided spaces to explore innovative approaches and emerging technologies without being constrained by accreditation requirements. With over 5000 students participating, the MOOCs also provided a powerful means to enhance outreach and visibility of CDU, and an opportunity for learners to get a taster for courses offered by the university.

In 2018, the external MOOC platform used by CDU was being decommissioned, prompting a need to rehouse the existing material.  Much effort and resourcing had gone into the MOOCs, they had received great feedback and won a number of awards. Additionally, several CDU courses were leveraging parts of the MOOCs, and there had been requests to continue to access materials.  This prompted an exploration of ways to continue to share the materials openly and cost-free to learners.

Several alternate MOOC platforms were initially explored, as was a pilot project to distribute the MOOCs via Raspberry Pi for remote learners. Around the same time, CDU was investigating ebook platforms as part of their OER strategy, and soon became the first university in Australia to sign an enterprise agreement with the digital publishing platform Pressbooks. Looking closer at learner requirements, and considering the overall value proposition for the university, Pressbooks emerged as the most suitable option for the adaption of two of CDU’s MOOCs.

About the two MOOCs

“Charles Darwin, Evolution and Tropical Australia” was CDU’s first MOOC.  Initially developed in 2013 and hosted by the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, Chris Darwin, this MOOC capitalised on the research and expertise from the School of the Environment at CDU. This MOOC introduces Charles Darwin, the theory of evolution, the esteemed naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, biogeography, and an overview of adaptation of tropical organisms in the Northern Territory of Australia. The MOOC ran several times until 2016, notably supported by guest appearances from biannually appointed Charles Darwin Scholars: Harvard University’s Professor Janet Browne, in 2014; and Professors Peter and Rosemary Grant from Princeton University in 2016.

“Who’s Counting: An Interactive Introduction to Accounting” was developed by CDU and its Chinese partner university, Anhui Normal University. Offered partially in Mandarin Chinese and fully in English, the course was directed at students with little or no knowledge of accounting and incorporated a wide variety of engaging and interactive resources, including practical activities to introduce everyday accounting concepts. The MOOC used actors to embody different accounting roles, and presented an engaging storytelling approach with practical activities.

Value proposition

Adapting MOOCs into open texts with Pressbooks offered a range of benefits to CDU including:

• Easy access for learners: Open textbooks can be accessed and shared via a public link, without the requirement for a login or being restricted by course duration windows.
• Learner preferences: Adults tend to prefer shorter, more informal educational activities rather than traditional, longer format courses (Bannister et al., 2020) as seen in the popularity of social media for curating and sharing information. A microlearning format for MOOC resources, housed in Pressbooks, addresses these preferences while still openly sharing the valuable MOOC resources
• Just-in-time learning: Open texts support the many learners who only aim to build a certain knowledge base or upskill (Wang 2023) and are not motivated to complete an entire course. Microlearning can present significant benefits for learners in terms of improving engagement and attainment (Shatte & Teague, 2020) and for contributing to lifelong learning (Olivier, 2021).
• Enhanced flexibility: Open texts in Pressbooks can contain a range of interactives and embedded multimedia, and can be downloaded in a range of digital formats for viewing at any time. Each page has a unique URL making it easy to reference or link for existing CDU users.
• Sustainable educational resources: Open texts provide long-lasting digital resources that can be easily updated with new content. They can be used and shared with minimal support demands while reducing the need for physical printing.
• Wider reach: The audience for the adapted MOOC resources can extend beyond course participants to a wider global audience.
• Cost effective: CDU can leverage the Pressbooks system for creating the open texts as part of their annual subscription, without the need for additional hosting costs or support resources.

Project description

The project to adapt the two MOOCs had a relatively short timeframe of 3 months, set by the imminent decommissioning of the current hosting platform. The project used a multi-stage approach based on the commonly used ADDIE instructional design model (ISFET, 2024), with stages visualised in Figure 3 and detailed in Table 1.

Table 1: Project stages and key tasks

Stage	Key tasks
1. Analyse	Review MOOC material for relevance, currency, and suitability, and curate resources Identify objectives for MOOC content adaption Consider audience needs and patterns of access from analytics and feedback Confirm content inventory including text, interactives, images, and videos Map topics, and how these could be logically grouped for ebooks Identify materials suitable to be adapted to ebook formats
2. Design	Select topics to be covered in each ebook. Topics were then distilled into focused sub-topics that could be easily digested in short periods, and independently accessed and completed Design each ebook structure, including chapters and sections Decide on content to be included and if changes need to be made to format to contextualise for ebook Plan the visual elements of each ebook Create ebook shells with basic structure
3. Develop	Copy content into ebooks and add/customise content as needed Adapt interactives and self-marking activities e.g. Articulate Storyline activities rebuilt in H5P Integrate visual elements, such as image, videos and theming Ensure media is optimised for ebook delivery and includes alternative text and attributions for multimedia Review and gather feedback from a sample of stakeholders (e.g. library, subject matter experts from MOOCs, learners) and make final amendments
4. Implement	Enable download options Test on devices to make sure the ebooks display and function properly Release as public link that is discoverable on CDU ebook and library catalogues Share information about the release of the ebooks to the CDU lecturers utilising materials in courses
5. Evaluate	Gather feedback and analytics on ebook use Schedule the ebooks for regular review

Key outcomes

The project resulted in the development of four ebooks from the two MOOCs (Figure 4), all openly licensed with the Creative Commons license CC BY SA.

Three ebooks were developed from the “Charles Darwin, Evolution and Tropical Australia” MOOC, drawing content from all four modules of the course. The final resulting titles included:

1. The Life of Charles Darwin
2. Wallacea and Biogeography
3. Evolution and Adaptation in the Monsoon Tropics

The most popular of these ebooks at the time of writing is “Evolution and Adaptation in the Monsoon Tropics”, which includes much of the video content created with CDU lecturers, and has been used by several of the Environment Science courses at CDU.

One ebook was created from the “Who’s Counting: An Interactive Introduction to Accounting” MOOC, drawing content from only the first module of the course. The decision to just create one ebook was based on the popularity and majority use of the first module, and the ownership of content to be freely shared as OER by CDU in an open textbook.

All four ebooks contain microlearning activities, including multimedia and interactive quiz content (Figure 5).

The ebooks continue to be accessed by learners both within CDU and around the world, and undergo regular review for usage analytics and link integrity (annually). The intended future direction is to look at possible improvements for content, layout updates and new activities.

Project champion reflections

Further resources

Access the ebooks here:

• The Life of Charles Darwin
• Wallacea and Biogeography
• Evolution and Adaptation in the Monsoon Tropics
• Who’s Counting? An Introduction to Accounting

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References

Bannister, J., Neve, M., & Kolanko, C. (2020). Increased educational reach through a microlearning approach: Can higher participation translate to improved outcomes? Journal of European CME, 9(1), 1834761-1834761. https://doi.org/10.1080/21614083.2020.1834761

International Society for Educational Technology. (2024). ADDIE model. ISFET. https://www.isfet.org/pages/addie-model

Lee, J., Song, H.-D., & Kim, Y. (2023). Quality factors that influence the continuance intention to use MOOCs: An expectation-confirmation perspective. European Journal of Psychology Open, 82(3), 109–119. https://doi.org/10.1024/2673-8627/a000047

Olivier, J. (2021). Creating microlearning objects within self-directed multimodal learning contexts. In J. R. Corbeil, B. H. Khan, & M. E. Corbeil (Eds), Microlearning in the digital age. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367821623

Shatte, A., & Teague, S. (2020). Microlearning for improved student outcomes in higher education: A scoping review. https://osf.io/preprints/fhu8n/

Wang, W., Zhao, Y., Wu, Y. J., & Goh, M. (2023). Factors of dropout from MOOCs: A bibliometric review. Library Hi Tech, 41(2), 432–453. https://doi.org/10.1108/lht-06-2022-0306