Design of MOOC on Research in Technical Education

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the socalled disruptive technologies in higher education, have led to increasing access to higher education to diverse groups including students, dropouts, unemployed persons, and working professionals. Government of India provided SWAYAM platform to institutions, both general and technical, to offer MOOCs in order to achieve the three cardinal principles of access, equity and quality. Four National Institutes of Technical Teachers' Training and Research have been assigned the responsibility of developing MOOCs for teachers working in technical institutions. One of the courses to be launched is Research in Technical Education. The course has been designed taking into consideration the various models of instructional design and the research findings in the area of MOOCs. The major features of the course are: modular structure, self-learning modules, pretest/posttest for each module, video lectures, web links, discussion forum, assignments, research project, interaction with instructor, expert involvement for mentoring and evaluation, and peer assessment.