Title:	INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF INTEGRATION MOOCS INTO SAUDI WOMEN’S HIGHER EDUCATION
Author(s):	Fadiyah Almutairi, Su White
ISBN:	978-989-8533-32-6
Editors:	Piet Kommers and Pedro Isaías
Year:	2015
Edition:	Single
Keywords:	MOOC, blended learning, blended MOOC, Higher Education, Saudi Arabia.
Type:	Short Paper
First Page:	299
Last Page:	304
Language:	English
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Paper Abstract:	Massive Open Online Courses are online courses most often taught by leading universities with the promise of providing free, high quality education to an unlimited number of learners. MOOCs also offer a new opportunity for blended course design, so instructors can integrate campus course components and activities with a MOOC. This kind of blended learning will help ‘face-to-face’ instructors to utilize lecture time for meaningful discussion, identifying and clarifying misconceptions or mentoring students on a group project. The paper presents an initial study of the context of Saudi Arabian education, the emerging MOOC landscape and proposals for a future study. The proposed study will examine the impact of integrating MOOC elements into taught courses within Saudi women’s higher education. There are a number of strong reasons for studying Saudi Arabian context. The Saudi higher education system is gender-segregated, so men and women are taught separately. Information communication technology has long been utilized in Saudi women’s universities to offer a remote interaction between female students and male lecturers. However, while video conferencing, CCTV or use of an online learning platform can provide remote access to lectures, they fail to provide the richer learning experiences Saudi women desire. Participation in MOOCs may be able to enhance the interaction and achieve a high level of participation to secure an overall learning experience. Evaluation of these outcomes may be generalizable to other similar contexts especially in less developed countries.
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