The role of the tutor in MOOC

Abstract

In the transition from the traditional face to face learning to open online teaching, the teacher plays an important role in the process of learning. Educational models have given different characteristics to the teacher but all converge on a general consensus within the competencies required for successful educational tasks. The MOOCs (massive open online courses) are using the principles of Connectivism. So, in many cases the role of the teacher is downgraded while the learning process takes place independently. In these open classes, where participants are numerous, there is a debate about the involvement of the teacher with the students. Teaching assistants (TAs) are also very important to conduct the course. The aim of this review is to examine the role of the teacher during an online course as initiator and evaluator of the learning process. Moreover we discuss how open courses could be used, in other ways, and especially in universities for LLL.