Especially in a MOOC, where you do not have direct contact with the learners, moderation of the online forums as well as motivation and feedback emails to the participants are very important. With the Insight tool, you can see how the number of participants grows and track individual activity for enrolled learners in your edX course. The Learner Analytics function allows you to identify committed or struggling learners. In the last week before course end, a short evaluation should be setup and presented to the learners.

Learning analytics with Insights tool

EdX Insights makes information about courses available to course team members who have the Staff or Admin role. EdX Insights provides these course team members with data about learner activity, background, and performance throughout the course. Using edX Insights can help you monitor how learners are doing, and validate the choices you made in designing your course. It can also help you re-evaluate choices and inform efforts to improve your course and the experience of your learners.

See also: edX Insights manual.

Provide email communication

To help you communicate to the course team or to all course participants, you can send email messages from the LMS by selecting “Instructor” to access the instructor dashboard. Send a prelaunch reminder to raise awareness of the course start date, publicize the course, and generate excitement. On your course start date, you can also send a welcome message that both welcomes learners and gives them specific actions to accomplish.

For more information, see Bulk Email. The topic on bulk email also includes a set of example messages to learners. You can use these example messages, prepared for delivery before typical course milestones, as models for your own course communications.

• Reminder to Register for Verified Certificate
• Weekly Highlights
• Mid-Course Encouragement
• Mid-Course Event
• Technical Issue
• Course Farewell and Certificates
• New Course Run Announcement

Moderate discussion forums

It is very important to moderate discussion forums around the clock. Teaching assistants can help you moderating the discussions. How can you find them: select participants that do most or all of the following (Barcena, Martin-Monje and Read, Potentiating the human dimension in Language MOOCs, eMOOCS conference paper 2015):

• Connects on a very regular basis and keeps more or less on task with his/her work;
• Spends a considerable amount of time participating in collective tasks;
• Answers lots of messages and peer queries showing concern and attention to detail;
• Contributes to the resolution of academic disputes satisfactorily, seeking consensus where possible;
• Searches for supporting evidence to help throw light on debates;
• Undertakes tasks for the benefit of the group, such as building up an errata list of the course materials;
• Acts as a pacifier when there is social conflict in the forum;
• Defends teachers when attacked;
• Corrects others’ mistakes with grace;
• Serves as a ‘coach’, praising good work and encouraging unmotivated students;
• Serves as a voluntary intermediate with the teachers when there are problems with the methodology, contents or materials of the course;
• Shows an attractive positive and extrovert attitude and, thus, becomes popular with the group.

All moderators should been assigned a discussion administration role.

Guidelines for communication in discussion forums

Stimulating interactivity is a proven way to improve student engagement. Though face-to-face communication is not possible in a MOOC, discussion forums should have an important role. Barcena, Martin-Monje and Read developed some guidelines for communication in discussion forums (Potentiating the human dimension in Language MOOCs, eMOOCS conference paper 2015):

• Be brief and relevant. Your colleagues are more likely to read your comments.
• Include a subject line that provides the topic of the message (not just “Hi, there!”).
• Acknowledge and return messages promptly.
• Do not worry about making mistakes. However, do revise your messages before posting.
• Be respectful in the form and content of your messages.
• Use controlled emotional language to empathize.
• DO NOT WRITE EVERYTHING IN CAPITALS – since it can be interpreted as shouting! Avoid ‘flaming’, exaggerated language and signs such as !!!! and ????
• Use asterisks surrounding words to indicate italics used for emphasis (*at last*).
• Use words in brackets, such as (grin), to show a state of mind.
• Use common acronyms (e.g., LOL for “laugh out loud”).
• Use appropriate emoticons (emotion icons). Use “smileys” or punctuation such as to convey emotions. See the list of emoticons at http://netlingo.com/smiley.cfm and http://www.robelle.com/smugbook/smiley.html
• Ignore silly responses or personal attacks. If you feel offended by anything, please let us know.
• Be understanding. It is easy to sound impolite or be misunderstood in written comments, especially by non-native speakers.

See also:

• Discussion Forum: Moderation and Best Practices
• Student-facing Guidelines for Discussion Forums
• Managing Course Discussions

Differentiating the Learner Experience

There are many ways to differentiate content in your course – it can be through course curriculum and content, assessments and discussion forums. This document from edX will address each of these categories separately, starting with course curriculum and content.

Setup course certificates
Before the end of the course, the course certificates should be designed. The design of certificates for your course, including your institution’s logo, are configured by edX. You have to add a signatory for each person associated with the course or organization whose name and title you want to appear on the certificate. Please read the instructions here.