The Coursera Community Framework: exploring the MOOC as a Community of Practice

Abstract

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have increasingly become an important element for individuals’ learning and development. However, MOOCs mainly concentrate on duplicating knowledge instead of constructing it. This research aims to explore the structure of the MOOCs for fostering the knowledge construction in which educational professional build, develop, share one another’ learning and reflections. This research focused on Coursera, a particular MOOC community, by drawing on the concepts of community of practice (CoP) as a theoretical lens. Three types of data were collected. The archival data consisted of the top and selected posts from online discussion forums, and the elicited data which was derived from over 60 interviews with Coursera learners. Meanwhile, field note data was extracted from 160 days of interaction with the participants. A qualitative research method using a netnographic methodology was employed. The findings contribute to the body of knowledge construction and online communities by providing an understanding of the domain, community and practice elements. The study on other elements such as the reinforcement of identity, formation of warrants and identification of mechanisms for legitimate peripheral participation can help to interpret the constitution of CoPs in MOOC. This research developed a Coursera community framework that generally makes a MOOC community more energetic to construct knowledge.

Keywords

• Community of Practice
• Knowledge Construction
• MOOC
• Coursera
• Netnography