mooKIT

Overview of mooKIT

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) need not be only about higher education and can contribute to sustainable development by addressing the three S’s namely, Skills, Scale and Speed.

The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) entered the MOOC space quite early, way back in 2012 with a course on Software Architecture for the Cloud. Since then there has been a lot of work in this space, not only in delivering MOOCs but also in developing tools and technologies for delivering MOOCs. One such effort is mooKIT, a MOOC management system.

The first requirement to deliver a MOOC effectively is a powerful platform. The existing software in this space is complex to host and manage, complex to change and adapt to local needs and also expects high internet maturity from the end-user. mooKIT is built to address all these issues.

mooKIT is a lightweight MOOC management system conceived, designed and developed at IIT Kanpur targeting towards developing nations. mooKIT, an open-source MOOC management software, has been used in more than 60 courses so far in India and abroad. mooKIT is a system that instructors, learners, and system administrators find easy to work with - designed for “Internet Novices”. Its unique architecture makes it highly customizable and cost-effective at any scale.

Features

• Adaptable to Varying Bandwidth: Bandwidth indicator to choose the delivery mode from video (when high), audio (when modest) or via phone.
• Discussions: Forums for in-depth discussion, hangouts for quick and real-time interactions.
• Internationalization: Select preferred language for the navigation menu. Integrate new languages easily.
• Assessments: Quizzes and assignments for evaluation.
• Certification: Generate certificates from template.
• Analytics: Monitor and gain interesting insights as the course progresses.
• Customizable: Adapt to local needs. Addition of new features is easy.
• Cost-effective: Handles high-traffic on low-end servers. Huge savings in hosting costs.
• Progressive Apps: Videos can be downloaded, and content can be cached locally. Both iOS and Android apps available.
• Digital Certificates: Cryptographically signed digital certificates can be issued on public blockchains like Bitcoin and can be accessed using a wallet. They are tamper-proof and independently verifiable.

Advantages

• Students: Intuitive user interface. Adaptable to varying bandwidth. Forums and hangouts for discussions.
• Instrucotrs: For instructor, it is easy to create and manage content. Powerful analytics interface is there to monitor and gain interesting insights as the course progresses.
• Organizations: Can create their own online course portals
• System Administrators: Easy to install and configure. Handles high-traffic on low-end servers. Huge savings in hosting costs.

MOOC with mooKIT

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become integral to the learning strategies of almost every individual.

The MOOC with mooKIT course is about how to teach a MOOC, from an instructor’s perspective. This course discusses the architecture of a MOOC, the various stages in a MOOC offering and best practices. The course highlights questions like what is a good video or how to keep up student engagement and retention. The course describes the features of mooKIT and how to get mooKIT running on your premises. The analytics module of mooKIT is very interesting and the use of analytics in monitoring and making your course more effective is explained.

Course Content

• Architecture of a MOOC 
• Introduction  to MOOC management systems - with mooKIT as example
• How to offer a MOOC - Process and best practices
• Video Production - Methods and best practices
• Installing mooKIT, mooKIT as a service, mooKIT app, blockchain certificates

Course Audience

• Instructors who want to teach a MOOC
• System administrators who want to create MOOC portals
• Anybody who wants to learn about MOOCs and what happens behind-the-scenes

Course Outcomes

• Features of a MOOC and MOOC management system
• Course analytics 
• How to prepare and deliver video lectures
• How to run a MOOC

Certificates

Qualifying students will be given certificates based on their involvement and performance. Participation Certificate and Competency Certificate will be issued by the Centre for Continuing Education, IIT Kanpur and Commonwealth of Learning. 

Sponsors

mooKIT was seeded by initial funding from TEQIP IITK.

Commonwealth of Learning supported by using mooKIT in various courses across the world through the twin initiatives, MOOCs for Development and agMOOCs.

PMMMNMTT, a scheme of MoE, Government of India, gave a big fillip through substantial funding and support for mooKIT development and brought it to this stage.

Source: mooKIT