RAPID: Understanding and Designing Community Dynamics in a Massively Open Online Course Platform, the Peer 2 Peer University

在这个项目中，研究人员将与最重要的开放教育平台之一p2p大学（P2PU）合作，研究如何设计、实施和分析在线网络基础设施，以促进大规模的教育体验。随着大规模开放在线课程平台（MOOCs）的兴起，我们非常需要了解如何利用这些基础设施技术来促进大规模开放教育。具体而言，该项目涉及(1)在P2PU平台上实施和进行设计实验，以产生关于如何改善开放式学习的网络基础设施的新知识；(2)收集和分析来自P2PU平台的数据，为开放学习动力学和开放学习社区面临的问题提供基础知识；(3)与P2PU合作，创建和共享公开可用的数据集、实践和标准，以促进更广泛的大数据驱动的学习和教育网络基础设施研究。在新的网络基础设施技术的支持下，快速发展的“大规模开放在线课程”（MOOCs）家族有可能提供大规模的互动教育体验。与此同时，研究人员、教育工作者和政策制定者对大数据驱动学习分析的潜力越来越感兴趣，以改变教育体验的设计、部署和评估方式。总之，这些趋势提出了本项目将探讨的几个网络基础设施挑战：——MOOC平台应该如何设计、部署和评估？什么样的设计特征支持适当类型的学习者参与？徽章和小组推荐等功能如何促进有意义的参与？——如何利用MOOC平台来满足日益增长的网络基础设施技能教育和劳动力发展需求？mooc是否为培养使用和支持新兴网络基础设施所需的技术、管理和科学技能提供了合适的平台？—需要什么样的网络基础设施来支持高影响力、数据驱动的学习分析研究？哪些数据标准和实践是支持开放教育和学习社区研究所必需的？MOOC平台在提高STEM培训以及更广泛的教育可及性方面具有巨大潜力。了解像P2PU这样的开放平台也有可能扩大个人和机构参与开放教育体验的创造和设计的人口。这个项目将帮助我们更好地理解网络基础设施（MOOC平台）的快速崛起，高度颠覆性的例子。因此，该项目将有助于以下领域的多个研究议程：计算机支持的协作学习；人机交互（HCI）；虚拟和在线社区；更一般地说，信息系统和组织科学。在这个项目中开创的措施、标准和实践也将显著加快数据驱动研究和学习分析技术的发展，这些技术适用于设计、管理、评估和改进国家日益增长的教育网络基础设施。

In this project, the researchers will collaborate with one of the foremost open education platforms, the Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), to study how online cyberinfrastructure can be designed, implemented, and analyzed to foster educational experiences at a massive scale. With the rise of massively-open online course platforms (MOOCs), there is a great need to understand how these infrastructure technologies can be used to facilitate open education at scale. Specifically, this project involves (1) implementing and conducting design experiments on the P2PU platform, to generate new knowledge about how to improve cyberinfrastructures for open learning; (2) collecting and analyzing data from the P2PU platform to contribute foundational knowledge of open learning dynamics and the issues open learning communities face; and (3) working with P2PU to create and share publicly available datasets, practices, and standards that will spur wider big-data driven research on cyberinfrastructures for learning and education.Enabled by new cyber-infrastructure technologies, a rapidly developing family of "massively open online courses" (MOOCs) hold the potential to make interactive educational experiences available at massive scale. At the same time, researchers, educators, and policy makers are increasingly interested in the potential for big-data driven learning-analytics, to transform how educational experiences are designed, deployed and evaluated. Together, these trends present several cyberinfrastructure challenges that will be explored in this project:-- How should MOOC platforms be designed, deployed and evaluated? What design features support appropriate types of learner engagement? How do features, such as badges and group recommendations, facilitate meaningful involvement?-- How can developing MOOC platforms be used to meet the growing needs for cyberinfrastructure skills education and workforce development? Do MOOCs provide a suitable platform for building the technical, managerial, and scientific skills necessary to use and support emerging cyberinfrastructures? -- What cyberinfrastructure is needed to support high-impact, data-driven learning-analytics research? What data standards and practices are necessary to support studies of open communities for education and learning? MOOC platforms have significant potential to increase the accessibility of STEM training, and of education more generally. Understanding open platforms such as P2PU also has the potential to broaden the population of individuals and institutions that can participate in the creation and design of open education experiences. This project will help us better to understand a rapidly emerging, highly disruptive example of cyberinfrastructure (MOOC platforms). The project will thus contribute to multiple research agendas in such fields as: computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL); human-computer interaction (HCI); virtual and online communities; and, more generally, information systems, and organization science. The measures, standards, and practices pioneered in this project will also significantly accelerate the development of data-driven research and learning-analytics techniques suitable for the design, management, evaluation and improvement of the nation's growing educational cyber-infrastructure.