Beaven, Mary; Hauck, Mirjam; Comas-Quinn, Anna; Lewis, Tim and de los Arcos, Beatriz (2014). "MOOCs: striking the right balance between facilitation and self-determination". Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 10(1). Pages: 13

The rise of massive open online courses (MOOCs) in the last few years bears witness to a large part of formal learning occurring outside formal educational setting - with learning opportunities largely mediated by technology. The paper considers whether MOOCs afford a collaborative environment in which participants can develop the necessary literacy skills to become successful self-directed learners and members of online communities. It also discusses the extent to which self-determination and participatory literacy might be relevant for success in different types of MOOCs. Participatory literacy is defined as the ability to contribute to blogs, wikis, social networking and sharing sites, virtual  worlds, and gaming environments.

The source of data is OT12, an 8-week MOOC on open translation tools and practices run in 2012 by the Department of Languages of The Open University in the United Kingdom. The data consist of pre- and post-course surveys covering learners' backgrounds and prior experience of translation, expectations and challenges envisaged, and evaluation of outcomes.