contributed articles developers Results count for this Results in the future. The novelty and publicity surrounding The novelty and publicity surrounding MOOCs inattracted early 2012 MOOCs in early 2012 a largeattracted a large Results number ofwho registrants number of registrants were more who were more The novelty and publicity surrounding curious than serious. We still take par-We still take parcurious than serious. MOOCs in early 2012 attracted a large ticipation in assessment as an indicaticipation in as an indication of serious intent. Of assessment the 154,000 number of registrants who were more tion of serious intent. the 154,000 registrants in 6.002x in spring 2012, Of Students taking MOOCs need to be extremely or- curious than Teachers of MOOCs need effective means to Researchers that study human learning are keen serious. We still take par46,000 never accessed the course, and in spring 2012, registrants in 6.002x in the assessment as an indicaganized and disciplined. MOOCs have no weekly ticipationkeep track of and guide the activities, progress, to understand what teaching and learning methmedian time spent by all remain46,000 never accessed and participants only154,000 one hour (see the course, tion of serious intent. Ofwas the in-class teacher encounters. MOOCs also have anding any problems encountered by thousands ods work well in a MOOC environment and now the time spent by all remainFigure 2a). Wemedian had expected a bimodal registrants in 6.002x in spring 2012, distribution ofparticipants total time spent, withonly a understand much less peer-pressure. Courses might have of students. They need to the efhave massive amounts of detailed data with which ing was one hour (see 46,000 never large accessed the course, and only peak of “browsers” who spent Figure 2a). We had expected a bimodal vastly different schedules, activities such as labs the median fectiveness of materials, exercises, and exams to work. As all student interactions—with learning on thespent order ofby oneall hour and another time remaindistribution ofearners total time spent, a to continpeak from the certificate atgoals and capstone projects, deadlines, and grading with respect to hour learning in with order materials, teachers, and other students—are reing participants was only one (see somewhere more than of 50 “browsers” hours. There who spent only large peak Figure 2a). Wewas, had expected a bimodal rubrics. Effectively using one or more MOOC uously improve course schedules, activities, and corded in a MOOC, human learning can be studied in fact, no minimum between thespent, orderwith of one of total on time a hour and another platforms can itself be a major learning exercise. distribution grading rubrics. at an extreme level of detail. Many MOOC teachfigure 2.peak tranches, total time, and certificate attrition. from the earners at who spent only Plus, many students are not used to collaboratinglarge peak of “browsers” ers double as learning researchers as they are insomewhere more than 50 hours. There on the order of one hour and another (b) percentage of total measured time spentterested by each tranche; and (a) Distribution time spent by participants in 6.002x (time axis is logwas, ofin fact, noatminimum between with students from different disciplinary backto make their own MOOC course work peak from the certificate earners Analysis Types vs. User Needs B. Teacher grounds and cultures that speak different native languages and live in different time zones. transformed); we divided the noncertificate earners into tranches based on percentage of assessment activity they attempted (see also Table 1); somewhere more thanfigure 50 hours. Theretotal time, and attrition. 2. tranches, was, in fact, no minimum between figure 2. tranches, total D D D** DE D D GA Activity Feedback D = Dashboard Supports Surveys DE = Data Export DE DE D DE DE D D D DE DE D DE GA GA X X ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ GA = Google Analytics *If students choose to take optional demographic survey **If toggled to record We would like to thank Samuel T. Mills for re-designing the figures in this paper and all 2013 and 2014 IVMOOC students for their feedback and comments, enthusiasm, and support. All R code and all Sci2 Tool workflows are available and documented at cns.iu.edu/2015-MOOCVis. 4. Topical Welcome ] Course Overview ] Visualization Framework ] Workflow Design ] Introduction ] Download, Install, and Visualize Data with Sci2 ] Legend Creation with Inkscape ] Weekly Tip: Extending Sci2 by adding Plugins ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Burst Detection ] Introduction ] Temporal Bar Graph: NSF Funding Profiles ] Burst Detection in Publication Titles ] Weekly Tip: Sci2 Log Files ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Color ] Introduction ] Choropleth and Proportional Symbol Map ] Congressional District Geocoder ] Geocoding NSF Funding with the Generic Geocoder ] Weekly Tip: Memory Allocation ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Design and Update of a Classifcation System: The UCSD Map of Science ] Comparison of Text and Linkage−Based Approaches ] Introduction ] Mapping Topics and Topic Bursts in PNAS ] Word Co−Occurrence Networks with Sci2 ] Weekly Tip: Removing Files from the Data Manager ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Algorithm Comparison ] Introduction ] Visualizing Directory Structures ] Weekly Tip: Create your own TreeML (XML) Files ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Clustering ] Backbone Identification ] Error and Attack Tolerance ] Exhibit Map with Andrea Scharnhorst ] Introduction ] Co−Occurrence Networks: NSF Co−Investigators ] Directed Networks: Paper−Citation Network ] Bipartite Networks: Mapping CTSA Centers ] Weekly Tip: How to Use Property Files ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Dynamics ] Hans Rosling's Gapminder ] Deployment ] Color Perception and Reproduction ] The Making of AcademyScope ] Introduction ] Evolving Networks with Gephi ] Exporting Networks From Gephi with Seadragon (Zoom.it) ] Plotly Demo ] TEI with John Walsh pt 1 ] TEI with John Walsh pt 2 ] 140 Number of observed events Number of observed events Summary 1/1 Week 1 Week 2 Lecture Video Lab Homework Book Tutorial Lecture Question Lecture Video Figure 4: Left plot shows, via coloring, the ratio of certificate winners to the number of registrants on a per Topical analysis provides an answer country basis for 6.002x offered via edX platform. Hungary (16.21%), Spain (14.55%) and Latvia (14.40%) to the question of “what” is going on are the highest. Right plot shows, via coloring, the ratio of certificate winners to the number of registrants on in a course. a per country basis for the Stanford cryptography course offered via Coursera. Russia (17.24%), Netherlands (16.43%) and Germany (12.95%) are highest. Student cohorts might be created based on prior expertise, geospatial region or time zone, access patterns, project teams, or grades. Probability 60 40 20 0 Week 14 Week 13 Week 12 Week 11 Week 10 Week 9 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 Week 8 Number of events/N(day) Week 13 Week 6 Week 14 Week 7 Week 5 Week 4 Week 3 Week 2 Week 14 Week 1 Week 13 Week 12 Number of Students 120 100 80 60 40 Week 0 1120 Week 9 Total Time (hrs)/N (group) Week 10 Number of Students Week 1 Week 5 Week 2 Week 3 Week 6 Week 4 Week 5 Week 7 Week 6 Week 8 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 9 Week 10Week 10 Week 11 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13Week 12 Week 14 Week 7 Week 8 Week 4 Week 2 Week 1 Final Exam Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 May 5 1 Week Week 6 Week 7 Week 8 Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 Week 3 of events/N(day) Number Week 6 Week 5 Week 4 Week 3 Week 2 Week 1 Total Time (hrs)/N (group) 500 hr 10 hr 100 hr Number of unique users 1 hr 10 min Mar 1 500 hr 100 hr 10 hr 500 hr 100 hr 10 hr 1 hr 10 min 1 min Jan 1 1 min 10 min 500 1000 1500 Number of participants spending log(t) time Total Time (hrs)/N (group) Number of participants spending log(t) time 120 100 Score 40 60 80 100 80 60 Score 40 IVMOOC Video Views 5. Network Acknowledgements francky.me/mit/moocdb/all/user_certifcate_per_country_normalized_cutoff100.html Week 3 Welcome ] Course Overview ] Visualization Framework ] Workflow Design ] Week 5 Introduction ] Download, Install, and Visualize Data with Sci2 ] Legend Creation with Inkscape ] Weekly Tip: Extending Sci2 by adding Plugins ] Week 6 Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Burst Detection ] Week 7 Introduction ] Temporal Bar Graph: NSF Funding Profiles ] New Burst Detection in Publication Titles ] Weekly Tip: Sci2 Log Files ] Video Types Number of Hits Welcome ] Theory 2013 Theory 2014 0 200 400 600 800 Hands−On 2013 Hands-On 2014 Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Color ] Introduction ] Choropleth and Proportional Symbol Map ] Congressional District Geocoder ] Geocoding NSF Funding with the Generic Geocoder ] Weekly Tip: Memory Allocation ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Design and Update of a Classifcation System: The UCSD Map of Science ] Comparison of Text and Linkage−Based Approaches ] Introduction ] Mapping Topics and Topic Bursts in PNAS ] Word Co−Occurrence Networks with Sci2 ] Weekly Tip: Removing Files from the Data Manager ] Data Miner Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Designer Overview and Terminology ] Workflow Design ] Librarian Algorithm Comparison ] Programmer Introduction ] Visualizing Directory Structures ] Project Manager Weekly Tip: Create your own TreeML (XML) Files ] Welcome ] Usability Expert Exemplary Visualizations ] Overview and Terminology ] Visualization Expert Workflow Design ] No Information Clustering ] Backbone Identification ] Error and Attack Tolerance ] Exhibit Map with Andrea Scharnhorst ] Introduction ] Edges Co−Occurrence Networks: NSF Co−Investigators ] Directed Networks: Paper−Citation Network ] Direct communication via Twitter Bipartite Networks: Mapping CTSA Centers ] Group membership Weekly Tip: How to Use Property Files ] Welcome ] Exemplary Visualizations ] Dynamics ] Hans Rosling's Gapminder ] Deployment ] Color Perception and Reproduction ] The Making of AcademyScope ] Introduction ] Evolving Networks with Gephi ] Exporting Networks From Gephi with Seadragon (Zoom.it) ] Plotly Demo ] TEI with John Walsh pt 1 ] TEI with John Walsh pt 2 ] Week 4 2 Lecture Question 18 Number of actions per day D Acknowledgements 4,11,19 A P R i l 2 0 14 | vO l . 5 7 | N O. 4 | c o m m u n i c At i o n S o f t h e Ac m Discussion Homework Homework Number of actions per day Test / Assignment Completion Content Usage Breakdown Path Through Content Time-stamped Activity "Active" Student Count Student Breakdown # of users DE # distinct contributors DE # of users D 1.0 Week 14 D 21 Week 13 Performance Final Scores by Question Lecture Question Wiki Week 12 D D Week 11 D D Discussion Tutorial Week 10 D D Week 9 D D Geospatial data might be examined at different levels of aggregation: by address, city, country, or IP address. Week 8 Class Grades Quiz / Question Breakdown Student Breakdown 3. Geospatial Homework Book Week 7 DE X X GA X Week 6 DE DE DE D D* Lecture Video Lab Week 5 DE X X X X 4 francky.me/mit/moocdb/all/user_certifcate_per_country_normalized_cutoff100.html Percentage of students who got a certificate Week 4 D D D D D Email Gender Demographics Age / Birth Year Location Level Education 6/30/13 Week 3 GCB Week 2 Coursera %N Certificate earners Canvas 3,17 %N Certificate earners edX 18 Week 1 Data Field for different types of students. Browsers Attempted > 5% HW Attempted > 25% HW time, and attrition. and > 25% Attempted > 15% HW (a) Distribution of time spent by participants inMidterm 6.002x Certificate earners Attempted > 25% HW Total time (hrs)/N (certificate earners) Data Type 0 Student input and feedback. Feedback data allows course providers to learn more about student learning goals and motivation, intended use of course, and content hoped to learn. It data also contains information about what students liked or disliked in terms of course content, structure, grading, and teacher interaction. Temporal analyses and visualizations tell when students are active over the span of a course. Data might be examined at different levels of aggregation: by minute, hour, day, week, or semester, by course modules, or before and after a midterm or final. Student Feedback Data 2. Temporal %N – Certificate earners accessing > %R – Resources How students are using class resources, such as the time and date of watching videos, reading material, turning in homework, taking quizzes, or using the discussion forum. Most platforms break down usage by content and media type (i.e. page views, assignment views, textbook views, video views). Path through content via inbound and outbound links is important for understanding learning trajectories. Number of participants spending log(t) time Activity Data 20 Student performance based on graded assessments. This is generally collected from homework, quizzes, and examinations, but it also includes results from pre-course surveys designed to examine student knowledge before they take the course. 0 Performance Data Line graphs, correlation graphs, and box-and-whisker plots are all examples of how statistical data can be rendered visually. Midterm Score vs Time Watched 20 General student demographics, including age, gender, language, education level, and location. Demographic data is commonly acquired during the registration process, and additional demographic data can be acquired via feedback surveys. 1. Statistics Platform developers need to design systems that support effective course design, efficient teaching, and secure but scalable course delivery. They need to support times of high traffic and resource consumption and schedule maintenances during low activity times. (c) average time a student invested per week. The shaded regions near Week 8 and Week 14 represent the time span for the midterm and final exams. (b) percentage of total measured time spent by each tranche; and (time axis is logMidterm Scores by Question (c) average time a student invested per week. The shaded regions near Week 8 transformed); we divided the noncertificate earners into tranches based 12 Midterm Final 1 and Week 14 represent the time span for the midterm and final exams. on percentage of assessment activity they attempted (see also Table 1); Final Score vs Time Watched 1,500 (b) percentage of total measured time spent by each tranche; and (a) Distribution of time spent by participants in 6.002x (time axis is log10 ●● ● (c) average time a student invested per week. The shaded regions near Week 8 transformed); we divided the noncertificate earners into tranches based ● ●●● 8% ●● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ●● 5% ● 60% ● ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● 8 14 represent the time span for the midterm and final exams. and Week on percentage of assessment activity they attempted (see also Table 1); ● ●● ● ● ●●● ● 5%Browsers ● ● ● ●● ● ●●●● ● ● ● 1,000 ● contributed ●● ● ● Attempted > 5%articles HW Attempted > 25% HW ● ● 6 12% Attempted > 15% HW ● ● and > 25% Midterm Certificate earners Attempted > 25% HW Browsers 4 12 Midterm Final Attempted > 5% HW 500 figure 3. frequency of accesses. Attempted > 25% HW 10% and > 25% Midterm Attempted > 15% HW 2 ● 2013 Certificate earners ● 2014 Attempted > 25% HW 1,500 From left to right, number of unique certificate earners N active per day, 10 their averageNo CreditThe shaded regions near Week 8 and Week 14 represent ● Badge 12 Midterm Final number of accesses each day the time span for the midterm and final exams. No Badge 0 0 for assessment-based and learning-based course Partial Credit 8% Trendlines components. Plot (a) highlights the periodicity and trends of the certificate earners. Plot FullofCredit (b) is for assessment, including5% homework, lab, and60% lecture questions, 8 showing number 1,500 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 accesses per active users5% that day.10 learning-based components in plot (c) include lecture 1 used 3 more 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 Hours Watched videos, textbook, discussion, tutorial, and wiki, showing discussion forums were log (t[hours]) 1,000 8% and with strong periodicity later in the term, similar to graded activities in plot (a), heavily Question Number (a) (b) 5% 60%12%lack periodicity and vary greatly in (c) 6 while other components terms of frequency of accesses. 8 5% 1,000 4 Activity Types Discussion Lecture Video 6 articles contributed 12% 500 Book Homework Question Lab Tutorial Wiki Registration APRil 2014 | vOl. 57 | NO. 4 | co mmunicAtio nS o f the Lecture Acm 61 10% Exam 25 25 francky.me/mit/moocdb/all/user_certifcate_per_country_normalized_cutoff100.html YouTube 2 forums is especially noteworthy, as they observed for supplementary (not explic- was partly responsible. (The4wiki and Twitter 5,000 20 were500 neither part of the course sequence itly included in the course sequence) discussion forums had no defined num20 nor did they count for credit. Students e-texts in large introductory 10%physics ber of resources so are excluded here.) 0 presumably spent time in discussion 0courses,16 though the 6.002x textbook To better understand the middle 15 2 15 forums due to their utility, whether was assigned in the course syllabus. The curves representing lecture videos 0 Demographic Data D. Platform Developer The fact that th ● algorithm; the ● ● ● ●● ●● ●●● ● ● ● ● 0.8 ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●● same number o ●● ● ● ● ●● ● ● ●● ● ● ● ● ●● ● ●● ●● ●● ● ● ● ● equidistant from A1 0.6 ● ● ● ● A2 problem is the A3 0.4 one-dimensiona value of each s ● 2013 0.2 ● 2014 our dynamic pr No Credit ● Badge No Badge Partial Credit the badge boun Trendlines 0.0 Full Credit 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 gion between th 0 2 4 6 8 10/14/13 Observed events date37 41 45 49 53 57 61 65 69 1 5 9 13 17 21 25 29by33 Hours Watched to the one-badg Number of A 1 actions Observed events by date Question Number solved analogo Figure 1:Observed User events receives and j is identic by date the badge after completing 25 A1 acevents by date the of tions. Actions A1 increase towards the badge boundary at Number VObserved 6,000,000 bj + U (xkj ) I 80,000 the events expense of the other site action A2 (shifting effort within observed badges to solve 6/30/13 site) as well as the life-action A3 (increase in site activity). 4,500,000 60,000 Two targeted d Percentage of students who got a certificate Now we cons and then solving for U (a1 ) = U (xa ) we have 3,000,000 40,000 types of actions pedagogical or social or both. The small course authors were disappointed with 3,000 and lecture problems, it helps to recall 10 θ · x1a · U (xa+e1 ) − g(xa , p) spike in textbook time at the midterm, a the limited use of tutorial videos, sus- that the negative slope of the curve is 10 so there are two 1 0 in the number of accesses, pecting that placing tutorials after the the density of students accessing 0 U (a ) = larger peak that 2 3 let n = 2 for co 1 − θ(x + x (they were fraction of that course component (see as in Figure 3, and the decrease in text- homework and laboratorylog 1,500,000 a a) (t[hours]) 5 20,000 5 1,000 book use after the midterm are typical meant to help) in the course sequence Figure 5b and Figure 5c). Interestingly, We begin by (a) (b) (c) of textbook use when online resources 1 Midterm Final Midterm Final Midterm Final 0 0 0 figure 4. time on tasks. Since we have already computed U (a + 1) = U (xa+e1 ), this are blended with traditional on-campus affect the optim 0 0 courses. Further studies comparing log (t[hours]) becomes 0an optimization problem in 3 variables: ues in two state Certificate earners average time spent, in hours per week, on each course component; blended and online textbook use are - 13 - 16 - 19 - 22 - 25 - 28 - 3 3- 09 3- 15 3- 21 3- 27 4- 02 4- 08 4- 14 4- 20 4- 26 5- 02 5- 08 5- 14 5- 20 5- 26 6- 01 6- 07 6- 13 3 01 3- 01 3- 01 3- 01 3- 01 3- 01 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 (a) (b) (c) midterm and final exam weeks are shaded. 2 3 1 1 01 01 01 01 01 also relevant. 12 12 12 12 012 012 012 012 0Viewer 12 012 012 012 Collector 12 12 12 12 12 012 60 10 20 20 tions 2 2 are 2 the 2 2sam Solver 20 20 20 20Bystander 2 2 2 21 2 2 2 2 20 20 20 20 20 All-rounder 2 Date Percentage use of course compoθ · x · C − g(x , p) a (a) (c) (b) a Date nents. Along with student time allocagramming table maximize APRil 2014 | vOl. 57 | NO. 4 | communicAt 50 ionS of t he Acm 61 3 2 (a) 6.002x: MIT/MITx (b) Crypto 1:2 tion, the fractional use of the various xa 1 1 − θ(x P (S|F ) 0.106 0.277 0.408 0.017 a + xa ) 0.192 = k1 and a a 2 course components continues to be an 100% 100% 40 other 3 important metric for instructors decidother 3.5 P (F |S) 0.050 0.334 0.369 0.894 0.648 • R: a finite r Midterm Final book with discussion activity increasing over these extremes, only a noticeable shoulof participants effectively drop out, ing how to improve their courses and j j 90% Legend APRil 2014 | vOl. 57 | NO. 4 | communicAt ionS of t he Acm 61 90% 1 profile 3.0 wiki subject to xaof ≥ interactive 0, j = 1, 2, 3visual and analytics xa = 1 showing the number of contributed articles researchers studying the influence of home Figure 5: Example semester. Lecture question events der (see Figure 2a). The intermediate 10but also invested less time in the first the30 exam • H: an infin 2.5 Year 80% course structure on student activity and 80% j=1 decay early as homework activity indurations are filled with attempters we few weeks than the certificate earnproblem 2013 20 learning. For fractional use, we plotted Table 3: How engagement styles are distributed on the ML3 (k1 , k2 − 1) ex 2.0 informational 70% creases. Textbook use peaks during exdivided into tranches (in colors) on the ers. The correlation of attrition with es, fractional use of those resources, the distribution for the lecture videos textbook, review earlier homework, or 2014 70% the percentage of certificate earners tutorial index 1.5 use ofmany resources during problem ishaving distinctly bimodal: 76%a of students thus and • V : an infin accessed at least certain per- search the discussion forums. We basis 10 and there is a noticeable drop in of how assessment items less time spent in early weeks begs ams, forum. P (S|F ) is probability of engagement style given forum where we’ve replaced U (x ) with C. In the appendix of the a+e 1 60% 60% accessed 20% of videos (or had a 1.0 unique opportunity to observe solving. Among the more significant Students centage ofover resources in athe course compothey attempted on participants homeworkwho and ex- the question of whether motivating textbook activity after the midterm, as (k1is− 1, k2 ) ex 780 extended version of theor paper we show how to solve this problemP (F |S) 0 findings is that at24% of students accessed less than transitions to all course components forum nent (see Figure 5). Homework and labs presence (reading writing to at least one thread); 0.5 0 18 10 50% wiki 50% ams: browsers (gray) 5% of students to invest more time would is typical 1in traditional courses. 390 tempted over 5% of attempted the homework<rep20%), 33% accessed 80%high of accessed by students while working (each and 15% of overall grade)over reflect 2 3 • Q: a quadr currently available at http://moocdbfeaturediscovery.csail.mit.ed 0 25 50 75 100 125 150 efficiently. For ourforum purposes, the important point is that the optimal 0.0 exam the 10 10 10 1 only 25%1of(red) all participants the videos. use. This The bimodality merits fur- problems. In previous studies ofhomework; on- resentedtranche Time on tasks. Time represents 5%–15% of increase retention rates. fractional inflection in these probability of presence given engagement style. 40% 40% 1 but accounted for 92% of the total ther study learning curves nearinto 80% might havepreferences; been higher line problem solving this information can beitcomputed usingdemocratizes the solution of the distribution in state a principal cost # function for students, so Similarly to b homework; tranche 2 (orange) 15%–25% # of In the rest of this article, we reof this platform is that effectively MOOC data science assignment questions submitted lecture Top 5 Countries of quiz attempts time spent in the course; indeed, 60% for do some learn butexample, for the course policystudents of dropping the was simply missing. 30% 1 30% of homework; 3 (green) > who 25% of strict ourselves to certificate earners, it is important to study how students 2013 2014 + 1. Since wedirectly know xawork = p with for allor states a access such thatto specific state acannot Figure 6 highlights student transiof the timetranche was invested by the 6% from other resources exclusively? The Or incentive to dev two lowest-graded assignments. who either gain data. It U.S. (33.4%) U.S. (39.5%) 1 ultimately Par- of did master the priorand to tions from problems (while solving allocate time among available course 20% homework; andreceived tranchecertificates. 4 (cyan) >25% lecture as they 1 low they proportionate usecontent of textbook India (6.8%) India (8.7%) 20% accounted for the majority of a ≥ k, we can use this to compute the optimal xa for all a such (those with a ≥ U.K. (4.6%) U.K. (5.1%) 15,19 ticipants who25% left the course invested the course? The distribution of lec- them) to other course components, tutorials is similar to the distribution Figure 4 shows the components. homework and of midterm exam. resource consumption; we also wantto participate in MOOC data science. 1 Canada (3.7%) Canada (3.3%) 10% be plausible conjecture a place where ture-problem use is flat between 0% treating homework sets, the midterm, less effort than certificate earners, 10%Number of handed-in assignments Figure 8: (left) and quizzes = k − to 1, and recurse allthat the the way forum back to might a0 , thusbe solving that a 253 students did not identify a country in 2013 Netherlands (3.5%) Spain (2.7%) Quadrants H most time is spent on lecture videos; Certificate earners (purple) attempted ed to study time and resource use over figure 5. fractional use of resources. and the final exam as separate assesswith those investing the least effort and 80%, then rises sharply, indicating 110 students did not identify a country in 2014 0% three to four hours per week is 0% high-achievers. students engage in problem back-and-forth discussions case. about course conthe user’s optimization in the one-dimensional since most of thethe available homework, mid- thefor whole semester. during first two weeks tending (right) to that many students accessed nearly ment types of interest. Figure 6 shows old badge in on US IN CN RU DE PL BR US IN CN RU DE PL BR the discussion forum is the mostterm, fre- leave sooner. Most certificate earners all of Along withearners the fact that greater (a) them. Percentage of certificate who accessed than %R of that type of course total duration of the schedand final exams. The median Frequency (a) of6.002x: accesses. Figure 3a close to(b)the To illustrate the effects captured by ask our model, we compute the students MIT/MITx Crypto 1: Stanford/Coursera Now we are Thelecture density of questions users is the negative slope of the usage curve. Two points indicating tent, or a place where students questions that other quent destination during homework invested the plurality of their time in the resource. time on drops (a) 6.002x: MIT/MITx (b) Crypto 1: Stanford/Coursera uled videos, students who rewound total time spent in the course for each bimodality of lecture video use are plotted: 76% of students accessed > 20% of lecture shows the number of active users per lecture videos, though approximately in the first half of the term (see problem solving, though lecture videos (b) optimal policy on a simple illustrative instance. Inone this after instance, videos, and 33% of students accessed > 80% of lecture videos. (b) Bimodal distribution for (a) 6.002x: MIT/MITx Crypto 1: 13.1 Stanford/Coursera rectly fill in in Electorate 3 steadily Figure Differences in relative use of resources by students different countries. student’s country is and from reviewed the videos A must compentranche 0.4earners hours, 6.4 hours, answer, or a place where students weigh in another on a day4: for certificate earners, with large the most time. During exams 25%was of the watched less than Figure 2),accessed this (as distribution suggests videos percentage). And (c) distributionconsume of lecture questions accessed. analysis derived from the IP address s/he commonly is logsmade in from. possible by the granular level of detail we place one threshold badge on action A1 with boundary 25 (i.e., suggests needand for 95.1 a students not only allocated less time (midterm and final are similar), previ12on SundayOur furthest from th or hours,20%. 30.0This hours, 53.0 the hours, peaks deadlines for graded sate for those speeding up playback 4 14 class-related issue. Our goal here is to develop an analysis frameQs ously done homework is the primary follow-up investigation into the corto them, some abandoned the lecture . Each individual available in the activity traces on Stack Overflow Figure 4: Left plot shows, via coloring, the ratio of certificate winners to the number of registrants on a per francky.me/mit/moocdb/all/user_certifcate_per_country_normalized_cutoff100.html 1/1 ML1 PGM1 omitting videos. hours,relations respectively. In addition to these homework and labs but not for lecture Our progress date community support, b = (25,to 1)). Wehas thenbeen solve to thebuild user optimization problem de- develop knowsoftware from solv destination, while the book between resource use and problems entirely. 4 consumes As 10 100 action performed by a user is recorded and timestamped, which af1 12 The most significant change over tranches, just over 150 certificate earnquestions. There is a downward trend 100% work that can clarify how thexforums are in of fact used.In the coming ye country basis for 6.002x offered via edX platform. Hungary (16.21%), Latvia (14.40%) most time. (14.55%) Student 3behaviorand on learning. Finally, we highlight the Resources used when problem solv- the Spain ML2 PGM2 a MOOC function a being (see Figfined above and plot the optimal 100% a as other concepts for open source frameworks for data science. Q-votes other sharply significant the discusing. Patterns in the sequential use of exam problems thus contrasts the first seven weeks the apparent ers spent fewerpopularity than 10ofhours in the in the weeks between midterm and fords usthethe ability to directly observe thewas complete sequence of 76% of students 80 ML3 PGM3 8 90% 10The user’swe’d book Video Views are the highest.IVMOOC Right plot shows, via coloring, resources the ratio of certificate winners the21 number of registrants on In like to address theA-votes following questions: accessed > 20% of videos with ure 1).particular, optimal mixing probability gets progressively behavior onto homework problems. sion forums in spite of being neither by students may hold clues home transfer of time from lecture questions course, possibly representing a highly the 90% final exam (shaded regions). No these frameworks, seeking more community involvement and collaborations actions users take and measure their progress towards obtaining profile Note that because homework was ag- required nor included in the navigato cognitive and even affective state. 0 wiki more deflected away from his preferred p as he approaches the to 80% homework, as in Figure 4. Considera per country basis for the Stanford cryptography course offered via Russia Netherlands tranche certification. homework or badges. labs were assigned in the Overflow 60 8 We therefore explored the interplay be- Coursera. 0 (17.24%), 10skilled 20 30 40 50 60seeking 90 100 gregated, we could not isolate “refertion sequence. If70this80social learning 80% 6 U (x We use Stack data from the site’s inception on file:///C:/Users/francky/Downloads/output (1)/output/observed_eve exam ultimate goal of improving educational outcomes through data science. %R Resources tween use of assessment and learning ences to previous assignments” forSimilarly, ing a performance-goal orientation (see stu- component played atest significant role just over 250 takers spent last two weeks before the final exam, badge The user alsoa more increases his probabilitystructure, on A1 in which • boundary. Does the forum have conversational index Week 1 70% (16.43%) and Germany (12.95%) are highest. July 31, 2008 to December 31, 2010. 6 70% 40by transforming time-series resources dents doing homework. in the success of 6.002x, a totally asyn-and problem Figure 5), it should be noted that homefewer than 10 hours in the course though the peaks persist. We plotted 4 33% of students by offloading probability masscontribute from both other action types: he data into transition matrices accessed between chronous alternative might be less ap> 80% of videos informational a single student may many times to the same thread 12 60% work counted toward the course grade, completed more than 25% of both exactivity in events (clicks subject to time forum tutorial Activity around the badge boundary. We firstwikiexamine how 60% 4 resources. conclusion pealing, at least for a complex topic 20 The transition matrix con9 Consider a s is shifting his effort within the site (moving probability mass from 2 per active whereas lecture questions did not. But ams notand earn a certificate. cutoffs) student per day for 6 tains all individual resource-resource This article’s major contribution to but likedid circuits electronics. as the conversation evolves, or a more straight-line structure, users’ propensities to take50% different types of actions 50% examvary as they 3how MOOC 2 have already co transitions we aggregated into transicourse analysis is showing Some of these results echo effects even on mastery-oriented grounds, stuthe other site action A The average time spent in hours per assessment-based course components 0 2 ) and also increasing participation on the Week 2 0 Coursera course edX Course approach the badge boundary. We aim to analyze both how users tions between major20 course40compo-60 data can be analyzed in qualitatively seen40 in 50on-campus studies of how 0 in which most students contribute just once A and don’t return? 40% might have viewed completion 0 80 100 0 10week 20 30 60 70 80 90 100tranche dents for participants in each 40% and learning-based components in Figther simplify: ). site overall (moving probability mass from the life-action 0 nents. The completeness of the 6.002x different ways to address important course%R structure affects resource use 3 Resources %R – Percentage of Resources Accessed 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 shift their effort between actions on the site and change their overall Title Cryptography I learning environment Circuits and issues: Electronics (6.002x) homework as sufficient evidence of is shown in Figure 2c. Tranchesin at- ure 3b and Figure 3c. Homework sets of 30% −60 −40 −20 0 20 shifting 40support 60effort and performance outcomes means students attrition/retention, distribu30% lecture Note that unifying participation and site in this The authors acknowledge discussions and from a number • Does the forum consist of high-activity students who initiateof resear introductory (college) courses. Thisnot did not have to leave it to reference the tion of students’ time among resourclevel of site activity. For each user we bin the number understanding lecture content. of Theactions of tempting fewer assessment items and the discussion forums account for Thread length lecture Instructors Dan Boneh Anant Agarwal, Gerald Sussman, Piotr Mitros Number of days relative to badge win 20% way does not necessarily make them students equivalent in ourfollow framework. 20% prominence of time spent in discussion only taper off earlier, as the majority the highest rate of activity per student, MOOC space. The following researchers’ contributions have been threads and low-activity who up, or are instrumenta the each type by day. This way, changes in the relative number of varfigure 6. transitions to other components during problem solving on (a) homework, (b) midterm, and (c) final. Arrows are thicker in proportion Week 3 63 from top to bottom; node size represents total time spent on that component. U (xa University Stanford University to overall number of transitions, sorting components MIT , p) could be chosen toand penalThe deviation penalty function g(xacentral 10% indicate a user shifting his efforts on 10% ious types of actions per day and building community support: Sherif Halawa, Andreas Paepcke (Stanford threads initiated by less contributors then picked Civic Dutyfor the life-action more than 62 c o m m u nic Atio nS o f the Ac m | A PR il 2014 | vOl. 57 | NO. 4 ize deviating from user’s preference Length 6 weeks 14 weeks the site, and the daily sum over all actions measures his overall parFigure 9: Number of distinct contributors as a function of 0% 0% 10 Franck Dernoncourt, Colin Taylor, Sherwin Wu, Elaine Han (MIT), Piotr MiU A B C upfrom by more active students? A B C (a) Homework (b) Midterm Exam (c) Final Exam where C = j deviating his preferences for the various site actions. Qs ticipation level (where an increase or decrease in participation can Platform Coursera edX thread length.(a) 6.002x: MIT/MITx (b) Crypto 1: Stanford/Coursera computed. This As Week 4 be interpreted as steering away from or towards the life-action). • How do stronger and weaker students interact on the forum? 8 Multiple badges. So far we considered a case where there is only Nodes Start date Jan 13th, 2013 March 5, 2012 Figure 5: Differences in relative use of resources based on grade cohorts. Q-votes the one we had For each badge, we take the complete set of users who ever Data Manager one badge on the site. We now show that a similar algorithm 120 Data C. Researcher 80 A. Student Course Start Along with these challenges, the sheer volume of data available from MOOCs provides unprecedented opportunities to study how learning takes place in online courses. This paper explores the use of data analysis and visualization as a means to empower teachers, students, researchers, and platform developers by making large volumes of data easy to understand. First, we introduce the insight needs of these four user groups. Second, we review existing MOOC visual analytics studies. Third, we present a framework for MOOC data types and data analyses to support different types of insight needs. Fourth, we present exemplary data visualizations that make data accessible and empower teachers, students, developers, and researchers with novel insights. The outlook discusses future MOOC opportunities and challenges. Scott R. Emmons Robert P. Light Katy Börner developers are considering ways to account for this in theways future. to acare considering 1 min Massively open online courses (MOOCs) offer instructors the opportunity to reach students in orders of magnitude greater than they could in traditional classroom settings, while offering students access to free or inexpensive courses taught by world-class educators. However, MOOCs provide major challenges to teachers (keeping track of thousands of students and supporting their learning progress), students (keeping track of course materials and effectively interacting with teachers and fellow students), researchers (understanding how students interact with materials and each other), and MOOC platform developers (supporting effective course design and delivery in a scalable way). MOOC Visual Analytics: Empowering Students, Teachers, Researchers, and Platform Developers of Massively Open Online Courses 1 hr Abstract only direct interactions with the homefigure 1. Screenshot of typical student view in 6.002x. work are logged with homework recontributed articles sources. There are clearly alternatives to only direct interactions with the homeAll course components accessed from the interface shown below. The left sidebar figure 1. Screenshot of typical student view are in 6.002x. this approach (such as considering all defines the course sequence; weekly units include lecture sequences (videos and work are logged with homework reonly direct interactions with the homefigure 1. Screenshot of typical student view in 6.002x. lab, and tutorials. The header navigation provides access to questions), homework, time alternatives between opening sources. Therework are are clearly to re- and answering logged with homework 21 materials, including digital The textbook, discussion forums, and wiki. All coursetime components accessed from the interface shown below. left sidebar ). are supplementary a problem as problem-solving are clearly alternatives this approachsources. (suchThere as considering all to defines The main frame represents first lecture sequence; the components course sequence; weekly include (videos and beige boxes below the header All course are accessed from theunits interface shown lecture below.the Thesequences left sidebar Our time-accumulation algorithm is this approach (such as considering all defines the homework, course sequence; weekly units include lecture sequences (videos and provides access to indicate lecture videos andnavigation questions. questions), lab, and tutorials. The header time betweentime opening and answering questions), homework, lab, and tutorials. The header navigation provides access to between opening and answering partially thwarted who open supplementary materials, including digital discussion textbook,forums, discussion supplementary materials, including digital textbook, and wiki.forums, and wiki. ). by21).users a problem asa problem-solving time21time problem as problem-solving TheThe main frame represents thelecture first sequence; lecture sequence; beige main frameedX represents the first beige boxes below theboxes header below the header multiple browser windows or tabs; Our time-accumulation algorithm is Our time-accumulation algorithm is indicate lecture videos and questions. indicate lecture videos and questions. are considering ways to acpartially developers thwarted by users who open partially thwarted by userswindows who or open multiple count browserfor tabs; the edX future. multiple browser windows or this tabs;inedX • Can we identify features in the content of the posts that indi21,744 154,763 achieved that badge and axis-align their activity profiles by letting References Coursera course edX Course 6 the user’s optimization problem when there are multiple can solve cate which students are likely to continue in the course and “day 0”FORUM denote the day ACTIVITY they receive the badge. To eliminate pos4. COURSE badges that all target the same dimension. sible population effects, we restrict the set of users to those who 4 which are likely to ,leave? Title Cryptography I Circuits and Electronics (6.002x) [1] K. Veeramachaneni, F. Dernoncourt, C. Taylor, Z. Pardos, and U.-M O’Re = (k 1)} for j ∈ {1, . . . , m} be a Let B = {b Table 1: Courses overview We now move to our second of they the win paper, the wereon active at least 60 daysmain beforefocus and after the badge. maximi standards for mooc data science. 1st workshop on Massive Open Online C , and assume that set of m badges all on the same action A Figure 3 shows user activity in the days surrounding the award2 forums, whichPiotr provide aMitros mechanism for students to interact with The course forums contain many threads (If of knon-trivial length, Instructors Dan Boneh Anant Agarwal, Gerald Sussman, < k < . . . < k without loss of generality. = k k ing of the Electorate and Civic Duty badges. Notice how activeach other. Because Coursera’s forums are cleanly separated from [2] K.for and we0 ask threadsthese are long because small set of Veeramachaneni, F Dernoncourt, Taylor, S. Halawa some j = whether j , then U.-M wethese can O’Reilly, consider two badges as aaC. sinsubject ity on the targeted actions (Q-votes for Electorate, Q-votes and Aallows researchers to refine the scripts. This framework is called MOOCViz. For its current appearance −60 −40 −20 0 data 40 individual 60 University Stanford University MIT the course materials, students can choose to consume the course gle badge with value equal to the sum20science. oftimes their people are each contributing many to a longvalues.) conversation, dards and systems for mooc MOOCDB Technical or Report, C votes for Civic Duty) increases substantially before users achieve see Figure 6. MOOCViz is currently available at http://moocviz.csail.mit.edu/. Number of days relativea to badge win of students are each the badge,ofand almost immediately returns near-baseline content independently thethen other students, or they cantoalso comwhether they are long because large number Length 14 weeks MOOCViz, when completed,6 willweeks allow analytic and visualization scripts for MOOC data analyses to be municate with their levels. peers. Also notice that most of the other site actions are not adcontributing roughly once. Figure 3: Number of actions per day as a function of number of versely affected—the rates of these actions remain relatively stashared, under the understanding that the data being analyzed is organized according to the MOOCDB days relative the time of obtaining a badge. Notice steering in mean numFollowing our classification of students into engagement styles, As a first way to address this question, we study the ble over time. Since the four actions shown in the Figure are the Platform Coursera edX our first question is a simple one: which types of students visit data model. MOOCViz activity entails developing a set of templates and support for software sharing the sense of increased activity oninactions targeted by the badge. ber of distinct contributors a thread of length k, as a function of main activities on the site, this means users increase their overall plus developing a means of sharing MOOC analytics results through web-based galleries. 6 activity level this, on thewe site compute in the days the leading up to achieving these the forums? To answer distribution of enk. The If this is close to vector k, it means thatgradient many from students are conStart date Jan 13th, 2013 March 5, 2012 firstnumber salient feature of the field is the badges. Thepopulation one exceptionofis students the A-votewho curve read in theatElectorate hot to cold if as ittheis angle departing origin varies between the for the least tributing; a constant or the a slowly growing function of k, then Initial design of feature foundry: Another web based platform currently under development will allow gagement styles badge, which drops in the days leading up to the badge boundary. two extremes. The fact that theare color stays the same along a given Registrants 21,744 154,763 the community to propose variables of interest to be extracted from the data. It is targeted to enable the one thread on This ML3is evidence (shown that in users the top row of Table 3). The repa smaller set of students contributing repeatedly to the thread. are steering their behavior from A-votes direction starting from the origin is a validation of our modeling Registrants Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 New Video Types Theory 2013 Hands−On 2013 Theory 2014 Hands-On 2014 Number of Hits 0 200 400 600 800 64 Lab Discussion Lab Lecture Video Lab Discussion Lecture Question Book Lecture Video Book Lecture Video Book Tutorial Lecture Question Lecture Question Wiki Wiki Wiki Tutorial Tutorial c o mmu ni c At i o nS o f t he Ac m | A P R il 20 1 4 | vOl . 5 7 | N O. 4 1 A-votes j j xa 1 2 m j j