Part 1: Engage an academic

Any MOOC needs an academic, or group of academics  who have the drive and passion to promote the passion for their research to a none fee-paying audience.  Of course, some of the leading academics in the MOOC field will be savvy enough to do it themselves.  But most will need to fit in such development within a fiendishly program program of work commitments.  Most academics have to walk a tightrope between their teaching and their research commitments.  In the UK context most academics have a salary that is bound to their research output.  The paradox here is that UK universities are mostly funded by tuition fees.  But academics in  UK, for the most part are paid to research, not teach.  So getting an academic to commit to producing a MOOC needs a special kind of academic or a special kind of persuasion. 

You need to convince them of what's in it for them;

1.  Reputation and Research Profile.  A great way to convince an academic to embark on producing a MOOC is to get them to see it as a method of disseminating their research.  Why not produce a MOOC that is a "taster" for their research focus?

2.  Time Saver.  Creating any kind of on-line courses is an investment.  Yes, the need a lot of planning (you can "wing it" in a live lecture, but not in an asynchronous online course!), yes they need more care and attention than a a face-to-face lecture; but once created they can be used again and again to a potentially vast audience.  If an academic sees the opportunity to use some helping in creating one, he/she would be a fool not to take advantage of such an opportunity.  Right?

Their calendars are packed so plan early and book early.  The first meeting with them is crucial.  You will be faced with scepticism and a fear of “I simply don’t have the time”.

Straight away, help them to visualise and quantify what needs to be done and enlighten them into a process of instructional design that isn’t an amorphous blob of work - rather its a series of well defined and quantifiable steps.

Of course, even if you've done this and even if you work in a university where you can provide some labour and material support many academics won't engage.  Usually for one reason.  And that's the subject of my next post.