MOOCs are combined with multi-media and social media, revolutionising learning experiences.
Breaking enrolment record
The result so far has been three professionally designed MOOCs that have been highly appealing to participants. The MOOCs were launched on HKPolyUx, which is hosted by MIT and Harvard University's online learning platform edX. On 25 August, Prof. Tsui, Prof. W.B. Lee and a team of international experts kicked off a six-week course entitled "Knowledge Management and Big Data in Business". It attracted total enrolment in excess of 26,000, setting a new record for Asian MOOCs. The participants were led through the role of knowledge management, the rapid and massive accumulation of data in the cloud, learning analytics and how to enact innovations with cloud services, amongst other topics. Practicality was a key feature of the course, with one participant noting that "it helped me with arriving at taxonomies for my start-up project in communication and data management."
"Knowledge Management and Big Data in Business" course is delivered by
PolyU professors and international experts.
On the same day, the School of Nursing and other departments within Faculty of Health and Social Sciences have also embarked on the HKPolyUx journey by launching a "Human Anatomy" MOOC. This first-of-its-kind MOOC offers generic anatomy learning to global audiences, forming a massive online anatomy community with more than 22,000 learners from 177 countries. Delivered by faculty instructors in collaboration with an international team of experts, this eight-week course helps participants to explore the human body from the perspective of six healthcare disciplines through a clinical case of severe stroke. As the most popular "Human Anatomy" course amongst 130 search results on edX during its offering period, this MOOC received positive and constructive feedbacks from many learners. As one learner publicly commented, "It is the best anatomy course I have seen. Micro movies present the stroke case in details, polling questions stimulate more in-depth thinking, and teaching videos are comprehensive and easy to understand."
Anatomy course allows learners to explore human body from six healthcare disciplines
through a stroke case.
A two-part "English@Work in Asia" MOOC helped participants succeed in job applications and job interviews, and by developing partnerships with leading international companies such as Deloitte, The Lan Kwai Fong Group, Esquel Group and Leighton Asia, the course has had an authentic connection with the real world of jobs and careers. With students from Brazil to Bangladesh, and Cameroon to China, their worldwide community of learners and experts enabled the PolyU enrollees to become critical thinkers with a global outlook. As PolyU final year accounting and finance student Cheryl Chung and prospective medical student Steeve Ndjila from Cameroon said, the course ensured that they were fully prepared for the job seeking process.
Industrial leaders from leading international companies share tips of succeeding in
job applications and interviews.
All three courses remain open for enrolment following their initial live runs, with only minor content limitations. These three MOOCs will be re-delivered in 2016. The world is increasingly dominated by the exchange of knowledge, and anyone visiting the HKPolyUx platform at https://www.edx.org/school/hkpolyux can benefit from that now. ♦
