A MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) pioneered by Dr Karen McArdle in the School of Education is up for a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) award.
KTP funding was received by Dr McArdle from the Technology Strategy Board in 2012 to run a series of CPD events for people in rural and remote communities of the North of Scotland, who work in Community Learning and Development (CLD) – Youth Workers, Adult Educators and Community Development Workers.
Two MOOCs were run for this target population who are notoriously difficult to engage in e-learning as they see themselves as face to face workers. In 2013, 300 people participated in this MOOC project co-ordinated by Ramone Al Bishawi.
Currently the project has been nominated for an award from the Technology Strategy Board for KTP projects. The two MOOCs were intended to help these CLD professionals to support disadvantaged populations to access MOOC learning themselves.
These were the first MOOCs to be run with a professional target population in mind and the first to focus internationally on the education of those who are non-traditional participants in adult learning in general and online learning in particular. The MOOCs were on Supporting Community Empowerment and Managing and Surviving Change in CLD.