Remain or Leave? Reflections on the pedagogical and informative value of a Massive Open Online Course on the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership

Abstract:
While the British electorate was asked to vote on a simple-sounding question during the UK referendum on EU membership in June 2016, the issues at play were extremely complex. In order to help potential voters make sense of the debate, the authors of this article ran a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on the referendum in the weeks leading up to the vote.

The core of the MOOC featured all the common characteristics of this type of course: weekly video lectures, quizzes, question and answer sessions, forums and personal journals which participants could use to share and deliberate.

This article reflects on the design and delivery of this course to assess its usefulness in an academic setting, especially when treating politically sensitive questions. In particular, the authors consider issues of format, participation, and interaction and also examine student outcomes as measured by a survey of users who completed the course.

What this shows is that the ability of MOOCs to deliver on their initial promise as a revolutionary pedagogical tool for communicating knowledge remains somewhat limited. Nevertheless, the level of student satisfaction obtained and the desire expressed in discussion forums for more expert analysis outside conventional channels suggested there is probably a high demand for EU-related MOOCs.

Further information

The JCER is an open-access journal published by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) in association with the UACES Student Forum.

The JCER invites submissions from scholars who are experts in any subject area delivering analysis that relates to Europe. This includes, but is not limited to, Politics/International Relations, Area Studies, European Integration, Economics, Law, History, Culture and Learning & Teaching. The journal publishes the work of established academics alongside that of PhD students and early career researchers.

JCER, Vol.13, No.4 (2017): Complete Issue https://www.jcer.net/index.php/jcer/issue/view/52

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