Increasing MOOC completion rates through social interactions: a recommendation system

Hugues Labarthe (1) , Rémi Bachelet (2) , François Bouchet (3) , Kalina Yacef (4)

1 FRAMESPA - France, Amériques, Espagne,Sociétés, Pouvoirs, Acteurs
2 Centrale Lille
3 MOCAH - Modèles et Outils en ingénierie des Connaissances pour l'Apprentissage Humain
4 IT - School of Information Technologies [Sydney]

E-learning research shows students who interact with their peers are less likely to drop out from a course, but is this applicable to MOOCs? This paper examines MOOC attrition issues and how encouraging social interactions can address them: using data from 4 sessions of the GdP MOOC, a popular Project Management MOOC, we confirm that students displaying a high level of social interaction succeed more than those who don't. We successively explore two approaches fostering social interactions: 1) in MOOC GdP5, we give access to private group forums, testing various group types and sizes, 2) in MOOC GdP6, we implement a recommendation system, suggesting relevant chat contacts using demographic and progression criteria. This papers presents our preliminary findings.

Mots clés: MOOC; social interaction; completion rate; attrition; student groups; recommendation system; chat

Domaines: Environnements Informatiques pour l'Apprentissage Humain

Hugues Labarthe, Rémi Bachelet, François Bouchet, Kalina Yacef. Increasing MOOC completion rates through social interactions: a recommendation system. EMOOCS 2016 Conference. Fourth European MOOCS Stakeholders Summit, University of Graz, Feb 2016, Graz, Austria. pp.471-480. ⟨hal-01277664⟩