Title of the proposal
How to create a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to reach Hispanics worldwide
Bio
Karla González, Ph.D., M.Sc., PMP
Dr. Karla González is Professor of Management at the University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras, where she leads the distance education initiatives for the School of Business. She specializes in International Business, Marketing, Information Technology Project Management, Instructional Design, and Distance Education. For 15 years she has led numerous e-learning projects in both industry and academia, including the creation of the award-winning first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) from the University of Puerto Rico, which is the subject of her upcoming chapter in “The MOOC Case Book: Case Studies in MOOC Design, Development and Implementation.” She can be reached at karla.gonzalez30@upr.edu.
General description of the initiative or project
The University of Puerto Rico (UPR) has explored the latest technological innovation in Higher Education, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), to reach Hispanic students worldwide. MOOCs are a revolutionary new form of online education that allows universities to reach thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of students with a single course offering. From October 30 to December 8, 2013, UPR offered its first MOOC, titled Diseño instruccional: una nueva Mirada (Instructional design: A new perspective) through the Ibero-American MOOC platform Miríada X (https://www.miriadax.net/web/diseno-instruccional). The MOOC was made available, free of charge, to any person with an interest in the subject and an understanding of Spanish, the language in which the MOOC was delivered. Over two-thousand (2,000) Hispanic and Latino students from at least forty-five (45) countries enrolled in the MOOC, with the majority joining from Spain, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, and Peru, but also reaching countries as far as Greece, Morocco, The Netherlands, Japan, and New Zealand. This course was not only the first MOOC for the University of Puerto Rico, but it was also the first MOOC styled offering in Puerto Rico. In June 2014, this MOOC received an acknowledgement award in the I Premio Iberoamericano Miríada X- Secretaría General Iberoamericana (SEGIB). It was all created with a two-person team (the producer and the instructor) and existing technological resources.