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Kaido Kikkas et al.
generation of workforce but also do it dynamically and provide flexible environment to facilitate it
(various authors like Benkler, Barnes, Himanen, Theobald and others also point to that direction).
We used the Ritchie and Spencer (1994) framework analysis method to study the feedback gathered
from the participants of open courses. The data originates from two sources - transcripts of the weekly
chat sessions and the reflections on learning experiences collected from ELNM and SSNC students
after the end of the course in 2009 and 2010. After familiarizing ourselves with the collected data, we
identified five emerging themes. Eventually, we indexed and charted the sections of the data using
EverNote. These five themes are listed below with some samples of data belonging to each theme.
1. Enlightening experience: open course as a new way to learn together
The first aspect clearly visible at the courses was their novel form for students. While a number of
them were familiar with eLearning, almost nobody had any previous experience with open courses.
This resulted in technical questions (“"Are the blogs bundled up somewhere?"), some doubts in the
overall process ("Do we have to be constructive? :P") as well as problems with time management
probably familiar from all e-courses (“What was the deadline? Sorry, I was in Finland last week").
However, the overall feedback reflects the courses being successful. The initial awkwardness ("This
course is my nightmare :)") was replaced by joy ("Loved it!” - the same person after graduation). The
feedback evaluated the courses very well (e.g. the SSNC 2010 received 92 points out of 100) and
also suggested good overall quality of the course ( "And as educational technologist, I now know why
some courses get the quality certificate and some don't :)”, "I enjoyed this course a lot, probably one
of the best this semester. Thanks, Kaido, and hope to take more of your courses next semesters.").
Another point was the ability of the facilitators to provide continuous feedback ("Thanks for the
immense work you did in weekly grading of tasks. It was an excellent course.").
2. The culture of sharing: daring to write in public
Writing in public was not very easy to adopt either - reasons were various like authorship concerns (“I
firmly believe that one's intellectual property is an asset and should be addressed as one”), lack of
time (“Blogging proved to be very difficult with such a hectic schedule"), organisational issues ("Are
references and such necessary?", “Do you REALLY read ALL the blog posts?") and difficulties in
formulating one’s opinion in writing (“The topics themselves are interesting enough and the main
obstacle may be how to stop thinking and just to write something in short words.").
However, several people pointed out that the publicity in fact works as a good method for quality
assurance, stimulating them to produce quality output ("My friend asked me about that mysterious
course which makes me write such interesting things in my blog.").
3. Real-time chat as a community tool: what it gives and what it takes
The weekly real-time chat sessions (we mostly used Skype in text mode) was received well by the
participants ("Thanks folks! It was fun. I'll look forward to the next chat") - among the outlined features
were immediateness and interactivity compared to other componentes of the course (“What are we
discussing? Or isn't it such a structured conversation at all?") as well as the wide range of topics
discussed (“"One of the best courses. and that’s because I expected those Wednesdays.a bit scary
and thrilling at same time and so interesting!"), although there were questions about privacy ("Will we
really have discussions that we won't dare to share? The course topic would imply openness") or
simply the need to be active in discussion (“Will we get credit for speaking or just being present?”).
4. Community gravity: nurturing the social ties within the group
The community gravity which measures how strongly a user might be attracted to a community was
first researched by Matsuo and Yamamoto (2009). We find the concept to be applicable also in the
context of eLearning (see also Väljataga and Põldoja, 2011). We suggest that open courses do
possess a good potential for strong community gravity.. Of the factors influencing the gravity, relaxed
atmosphere and a modest level of formality (“"Sorry, it is easier and more interesting than I thought"),
informativeness (not strictly limited to the course programme ("Thanks - I'd have never heard about
Pekka Himanen without this course", but also "So, let's start with Angelina Jolie and her part in "The
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