UDL principles for enhancing MOOC recommendation through collaborative filtering: YourMOOC4all case study

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are attracting a wide range of learners, over 800 universities around the world have launched at least one MOOC in 2019, coexisting worldwide an overall offering of more than 9K MOOCs. Due to the high amount of MOOC offerings, the need for specific recommender sites is indisputable. But there is still a critical point ignored in the MOOC recommender systems while dealing with inclusive design. There is a lack of detailed information regarding accessibility to ensure that disabled learners can access the platform and the educational resources. In this work, called YourMOOC4all [1], a pilot recommender system based on collaborative filtering has been developed and user feedback is organised from a wide range of participants into a coherent and actionable structure. This recommender system is influenced by other systems that use learners’ feedback. There exist several MOOC aggregator sites such as CourseTalk [2], where learners can add feedback about the MOOCs they are participating in and receive recommendations. Learners are the best to provide compliments and criticisms of course designs, especially students with disabilities. YourMOOC4all is a programmed prototype harvesting information from more than 700 MOOCs for testing. The evaluation process is done by the users themseleves, answering autonomously a web form created following the framework proposed by UDL (Universal Design for Learning) principles. The indicators have been developed by the authors based on the last UDL guidelines version. It is also possible to review different pedagogical aspects of the MOOCs rating them or adding free text comments, which includes giving an opinion about the content of the MOOC, that could be of interest to both the provider and the instructor. [1] YourMOOC4all http://yourmooc4all.lsi.uned.e [2] Course Talk https://www.coursetalk.com/