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Digital Skills and MOOC Success: Evidence from Energy Courses

Contribution: This article analyzes the correlation between users' digital competencies and their tendencies to successfully complete energy sustainability massive online open courses (MOOCs). In addition to reviewing whether digital competencies are a predictor of the effective completion of the course, this article analyzes whether participants acquire higher levels of digital competence through interaction in the course. Background: Completion rates of MOOCs typically range between 5% and 8%, with respect to registered participants. According to the literature, low rates may be due to factors such as students' lack of motivation or digital competence limitations. Research Questions: RQ1: Is there a correlation between the level of digital competence declared by the participants and their tendency to successfully complete the MOOC? RQ2: Does participation in a MOOC improve participants' digital competencies? Methodology: Two surveys, one pretest and one post-test (before and after the MOOCs), were applied to assess the digital competence levels of the participants. The total population of participants in the 12 MOOCs was 123 124 unique users, from which 9075 participants (pretest) - 7.37% of the universe - and 6029 participants (post-test) - 35.70% of the universe - were extracted as a sample. To determine its internal consistency, an exploratory factorial analysis was performed on both instruments and a Cronbach's alpha greater than 0.8 was obtained in all of its dimensions. Findings: A significant level of moderate to high correlation between the declared levels of digital competence and the trend toward successful completion of the MOOCs under study was observed. However, a significant increase was not demonstrated in the levels of digital competence acquired in the interaction with MOOCs. Conclusions: The level of digital competence of a participant in a MOOC was a valid predictor of their tendency to finish it. Although no increase in the levels of digital competence acquired through MOOCs was demonstrated, this may be because the subject matter of the MOOCs was alien to the indicators and dimensions of the digital competence. Further research could analyze the effectiveness of MOOCs in terms of digital competition at the acquired levels of competition.

Global Educommunication Trends in Policy and Practice

This research analyzes the notion that the main international organizations of multilateral character have on the concept of educommunication (media literacy), by means of the correlational extract and analysis of the content of interpretative base of 2.648 information units from 12 organizations, both regional and transcontinental, including the United Nations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Arab League, the International Organization of la Francophonie, the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries and the Organization of Ibero-American States, African Union, European Union, League of Arab States, Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization of American States, Commonwealth of Latin American and Caribbean States, Union of South American Nations, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf and Pacific Islands Forum. Regarding the main results, it is evident that 83% of the organizations analyzed, except in the Community of Portuguese Language Countries and in the African Union, the convergence of the educational and communicative context is specifically presented under the terminology “media education”, which influences the formulation of domestic policies through the proposal of incentives and restrictions that affect decision making at the governmental level, alluding to the continuous change and the dynamic construction of identity. 

Entrepreneurship Skills in Energy MOOCs: A Latin American Study

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been gaining popularity as non-formal lifelong learning educational platforms. However, they have been criticized for their low completion rate and low ability for networking. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how incorporating entrepreneurial competencies in MOOCs develops attributes of educational innovation and collaborative projects. The research followed a three-stage process: in the first stage, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify dimensions of entrepreneurial skills and attributes of educational innovation in MOOCs. In the second stage, a quantitative study was carried out based on the analysis of pre- and post-test surveys taken by a sample of 6,517 participants. In the last stage, the interaction analysis model/computer-mediated communication analysis model was applied through qualitative analysis, using the MAXQDA tool to identify if entrepreneurship opportunities were generated in the interactions within the discussion forums of the MOOCs.The results show that the analyzed MOOCs have an overall completion rate of 12.55%, above the average of the rates found in the literature review. However, only 14.29% of the participants expressed at least one opportunity to generate ventures related to the topics of energy in the discussion forums. This research could help instructional designers and universities to consider the inclusion of entrepreneurship issues in the design of MOOCs’ content and to encourage more activities that promote networking among participants to identify business potential from the educational materials. This research is one of the very few studies on entrepreneurship competencies in MOOCs to understand how the inclusion of issues related to entrepreneurship in MOOCs can generate a positive impact on participants.

Gamified Platforms to Boost Entrepreneurial Skills

The study aims to reveal the need to propose a digital network where entrepreneurs can disseminate their skills achieved beyond formal and normative education. The general objective is to design a gamification platform based on entrepreneurial skills. For this, the specific objectives are proposing a Delphi study to 15 experts obtaining a list of priority competencies in the profiles of entrepreneurs, then the second specific objective is integrating the selected competencies within an interface based on the use of game elements, resulting in a platform that displays the 5 priority competencies, learning through experience, motivation, spotting opportunities, working with others and valuing ideas with 5 game elements respectively, experience points, feedback, leaderboards, progress bar and badges. From the results obtained, it can be concluded that the model implemented will serve as a first precedent for the display of competencies, thus providing an alternative traceability to the skills achieved by entrepreneurial initiatives.

Media Competence in Digital Natives: A Spanish School Study

The ways in which young people communicate have changed in line with the impact of technologies. This change has been accompanied by growing differences between the young, and their "liquid" experience, and adults with their "solid" experience, and these shapes the state of the question that defines young people as digital natives. This work analyses Spanish adolescents' level of media competence. The sample consisted of 672 students attending secondary schools in 10 provinces in Spain. The average age of the participants was 14. The study aims to show that, although today's adolescents are described as the digital generation, and there is a widely held belief that they are digital natives, their level of media competence is low and there is need for fomenting greater literacy skills in this field. The "ad hoc" questionnaire yielded results that indicate an overall medium level of media competence, but a skills shortage in the dimensions relating to critical thinking, such as in reception and audience, production and programming processes, and ideology and values. The conclusions question the supposed superior competence of digital natives in media. This study underlines the need for a clear definition of the concept of media competence from a convergence perspective.

Digital Gaps in Higher Ed: Media Skills in Ibero-America

Media competencies are a set of skills that every individual should possess in order to be able to consume and produce media and digital and information products in a critical and analytical way. This exploratory and comparative work analyses the level of media competence among 1,676 university students and 524 professors in Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Venezuela. One of the main results shows that the level of knowledge of technology and interaction — which is linked to digital competencies — does not depend solely on age, thus contradicting theories of digital natives and migrants. Our study also found that the general level of media competence is no better than medium to low when considering language, technology, interaction, production and dissemination, ideology and values, and aesthetics. These results point to the need to develop transversal actions for instructing both university professors and students in media competencies to face an ecosystem dominated by fake news and disinformation, as well as public policies directed at improving these skills among citizens at large.

Gamification in MOOCs: Boosting Completion in Energy Courses

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have triggered a sudden change in the educational scene. Its characteristics of being free, heterogeneous, multi-thematic, and fostering lifelong learning have completely changed the instructional design scene, allowing these innovations and new architectures of teaching and learning to be included. However, MOOCs have been criticized by the scientific community for their high dropout rates and low overall completion rates, which has called into question their effectiveness as a pedagogical tool. This paper analyzes how the application of gamification strategies in MOOCs on energy sustainability affects participants' engagement and seeks to identify what types of interactive gamification media are more useful in generating interest and motivation in students. In order to do so, a mixed quasi-experimental method is used. A gamification board with challenges, badges, and leaderboards to a sample is used, and at the same time, this platform is analyzed using the integrated theoretical gamification model in e-learning environments. In the MOOCs where gamification strategies were applied, a global completion rate of 14.43% was obtained, while in those without gamification, 6.162% was obtained. Likewise, the degree of student engagement with respect to the completion rate of activities was much higher in the gamified platform (28.032%) than in the traditional design (13.252%). The results show that applying gamification strategies in MOOCs achieves a higher level of engagement and student motivation.

The University as a Common Good: A New Governance Model

This book gathers the contributions of the Common Goods Research Group of the Salesian Polytechnic University, created in 2016 to deepen and identify the implications and possibilities of imagining the university as a "commons". This option must be explained as the connection of the use of the commons - as understood by Elinor Ostrom in her work The Governance of the Commons. The Evolution of Collective Action Institutions (2011) - with the possibility of rethinking the university across the board is neither immediate nor coincidental and, at first glance, such a connection sounds strange in times when we assess relevance based on evidence accessible at first glance.

Media Literacy of Teachers in Andean Countries

In an increasingly saturated information and infoxicated world, Media Literacy emerges as a necessity for effective filtering of the vast amount of information we consume. The present research aims to quantitatively analyze the level of media competencies of Colombian(Medellin) and Ecuadorian (Loja and Zamora) teachers by means of the application of an adaptation of the taxonomy from the media competencies model, which consists of 6 dimensions and a total of 12 indicators. The total analyzed sample was comprised of 654 teachers from 81 public and private institutions. A data-gathering instrument was used with the aim of determining their level of media competencies from each of the dimensions. The results showed a low to medium level of media competency knowledge, which illustrated the need for priority interventions based on local, regional and international works, namely those that mobilize scientific, academic and political collaboration to improve the performance of a population that should lead the general training of citizens in media competencies.

How Video Games Boost Reading Skills

This research analyzes the systematic linking of videogames in the processes towards the development of reading in the media and digital environment through the theoretical review. For this objective it was reviewed academic publications from international databases submitted between 2005 and 2016 related to the involvement of video games related on reading organized by school level, theoretical approach and research design. The results demonstrated its prevalence in secondary education basing its impact as an educational agent on changes in reading habits by opening a connection between readers and motivating of collaborative interaction. Likewise, the transformation of the process towards an oriented in- formation search and acquisition of reading comprehension skills. Following this argument, it concludes in favor of the inclusion of videogames in the educational curriculum focused on the development of reading in the digital and media context.