Massively Open Online Conversation? Examining the #mooc Hashtag

MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) are a hotly debated topic in educational circles; some think that they will transform access to education, while others feel that they contain a host of problems including organizational problems, copyright, student support, and so forth. The hashtag #mooc is ostensibly neutral, used by both camps. Or is it?

RQ 1: How, if at all, is the #mooc hashtag politicized?

RQ 2: Who is dominating the #mooc conversation, and in what way?

Methodology

• Pulled all mentions of #mooc from 3 March – 26 June 2013
• Used TCAT to find Top Mentions, Top Users, Top Domains, Top URLs and RT Frequency
• Manually coded Top Mentions, Top Users for Location and Affiliation
• 51,000 tweets (approx.)
• Removed #mooc*

Findings: Overview

• Conversation is an echo chamber
• Narrow geography
• Driven by news
• Unidirectional: no real conversation

Challenges: Dataset included unwanted hashtags (#moochers, #moochelle obama) Hashtag co-occurrence: tool fail Time limitations: hand-coding Tweets for deeper understanding of conversational dynamics OpenCalais: Textual issues relate to Twitter shared URLs (positional references)