Abstract
While recent research has explored how to keep learners engaged in massive open online courses (MOOCs), motivating sustained engagement in small private online courses (SPOCs) has received less attention. The recent rise in SPOC offerings by academic institutions significantly increases the need to better understand how best to motivate and support learners in these communities, which can be differentiated from those in MOOCs by their smaller size, fixed timeframe, instructor presence, and more predictable learning paths. This paper describes a system, “Small Private Online Course Keeper” (SPOCK), designed to support communities of learners in SPOCs and presents an experience report detailing its usage in five SPOCs taught over two semesters. This report focuses on the ability of SPOCK to motivate sustained lecture video engagement through two primary features: 1) a credit and reward system, and 2) timeline-anchored, “pseudo-anonymous” comments and replies. The credit and reward feature motivated system usage by 77% of survey respondents, and its pseudo-anonymity feature motivated system usage by 63% of respondents. Usage data reflects these reported levels of motivation, with 82% of students earning more than the minimum number of credits expected and over 63% of students voluntarily submitting comments or replies, 72% of which were posted anonymously. Further analysis showed that students earned credits steadily throughout the semesters through a variety of means, and their posts were found to be positive in tone and on-topic.