Intellectual Output I: Online Self-Assessment Tool

Purpose of the tool

The online self-assessment tool is a web-application that was designed by MODE IT team to support academic staff in identifying their individual needs for the design and delivery of MOOC-based teaching and learning scenarios. When completing this tool, the current level of didactical and digital skills can be explored, the areas for skills improvements can be detected, and related suggestions for improvement are displayed. In this manner, the responsibility of teachers for their own professional development can be fostered, too.

Structure of the tool

The tool includes 27 competencies from the domains Pedagogy and Technology identified by MODE IT experts as the most relevant for the creation and delivery of MOOCs. These competencies were also verified by participants in 5 focus groups consisting of academic staff and instructional designers from partner institutions in Lithuania, Portugal, Germany, Turkey, and Romania.

The 27 competencies are organized into 5 competency areas as follows:

• AREA 1: Pedagogical competences for designing student-centered learning;
• AREA 2: MOOC specific competences;
• AREA 3: Technology-related competences;
• AREA 4: Competences related to the theoretical foundations of MOOCs;
• AREA 5: Competences about integration of MOOCs into formal learning.

Piloting of the tool

The self-assessment tool was piloted by 64 HEI teachers from MODE IT partner institutions. In practice, that meant that teachers we invited to self-estimate their level of proficiency on each of 27 competences by indicating one of the six statements (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) that, in users’ opinion, best characterized their current competence level in relation to MOOC design and delivery. Upon assessing each competence area, the tool provided a detailed feedback on users’ level of mastering the competences concerned, and displayed a few suggestions for improving those competences.

After the evaluation of the results of the piloting phase and implementation of a few small improvements, the tool is now accessible for free to wider academic community and can be used at any stage of teachers’ professional career.

Access to the tool

The self-assessment tool is currently available in MODE IT partner country languages, which are English, German, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romanian, and Turkish.

You can access the tool by selecting one of the two options:

OPTION 1: access via LMS Moodle of MODE IT partner Kaunas University of Technology (KTU).

To access the tool at KTU Moodle, only the registration at the KTU Moodle is needed, which is free of charge, open for anybody and is quite easy (i.e. directly via a Google account). To help you navigate through the LMS Moodle of KTU and the tool, we designed User Guides in MODE IT partner country languages. Feel free to consult them when accessing the tool for the first time.