In the Hall of MOOCs

The concept of MOOCs has existed for more than twenty years, but their extraordinary development belongs to recent history. Although many major American universities such as Harvard, Stanford and Yale have opted for MOOCs since 2008 (MIT since 2001), the movement in Europe only really began in 2013. In this respect, EPFL was immediately at the head of the pack, with the first MOOC from Martin Odersky (School of Computer and Communication Sciences) on functional programming having been put into place already by the end of 2012.
Patrick Jermann is the Executive Director of the Center for Education in the Digital Era (CEDE) and has been since its creation in April 2013. One year later, a dozen IT specialists, editors, video coordinators and assistants are working daily to create new MOOCs. This is a real success, especially considering that the 20 MOOCs already produced were attended by more than 330,000 users. However, this success did not simply fall from the sky. It was built through effort, research and creative innovation.

The beginnings

"When I was named Executive Director of CEDE, I was the only one here. EPFL had just decided to invest in the development and creation of MOOCs, but at that time, there was nothing. Everything has been constructed since then, and we were the first." Patrick Jermann passes his offices in the Rolex Learning Center on the way to the MOOC production studio. Once arrived at his destination – a small room filled floor to ceiling with video material, spotlights, reflectors and microphones – he sits down and continues his story. "After having received help from Olivier Porchet of SAVE (Audiovisual Service of EPFL), I hired Gilles Raimond, a computer programmer who is passionate about multimedia, Gwénaël Bocquet, a video coordinator, and several students to help us with assembly. Over several months, the first MOOCs were created on an amateur level, simply to meet the needs of EPFL. We didn’t have any real examples to use as inspiration."
Seated at Jermann’s side, Gilles Raimond agrees. "We had hardly any equipment, just a simple WACOM tablet, an XA-10 camera, an iMac, a lavalier microphone and an old amp. Needless to say, the image would be too bright or not bright enough, there was only one possible angle, and the more the amplifier heated up, the worse the sound became. It was… difficult."

One of the first MOOCs: example of a bad frame, too tight, the hands of the teacher are out of sight


Technical pitfalls… and human errors

The team expanded and became increasingly professional in meeting the technical challenges that lined up without end. "Each step forward generated an onslaught of problems to resolve," explains Gilles Raimond, with the air of one who enjoys returning to the memory of challenges overcome. "First there was the sound. When the amplifier heated up, the sound crackled. I spent hours trying to fix our first recordings. Finally, we installed soundproofing and bought more microphones. But even then, several professors weren’t totally satisfied with their own texts recorded at home, and sent us sound extracts to integrate into the video. I’ll let you guess how that worked out," he finishes, laughing.
Patrick Jermann and the CEDE associates quickly learned that in the Youtube era, a student only remains attentive in front of an educational video for about ten minutes. That’s why the model they adopted for MOOCs only lasts 15 minutes and alternates quickly between presentations and exercises. "But even with this model," continues Patrick Jermann, "the participants lose interest quickly if there’s only one camera. We have always tried to innovate and find new angles, such as, for example, seeing the professor’s hand in transparence when writing on a tablet."

Transparency effect on the hands of the teacher at the end of video (5'07'')

And tests? There have been many. The CEDE team has produced many improvements to better support students throughout the learning process. These include adding materials such as the teleprompter and green screen (practically the same system used with the weather report) as well as a second camera for creating a profile shot against a black background and new floor microphones recorded with the video feed via a professional mixing table.

"From a technical point of view, we will soon reach the maximum of what we can hope for. But there are still a few ideas we’re working on, such as a kind of tabletop capture that makes it possible to write on paper, show objects and do stop-motion animations. The most important thing is to translate in video the presence of the professors when giving explanations without having to necessarily show them onscreen all the time," explains Patrick Jermann further.

Patrick Jermann and Gilles Raimond in the MOOCs production studio


Time consuming production

The production quality of MOOCs at EPFL is often accompanied by a uninvited guest: time. Producing a MOOC means putting 5 videos online per week throughout 7 weeks. A video averages 15 minutes, and the total duration of a MOOC amounts to around 10 hours. "Producing a MOOC from start to finish requires a week of full-time work on the part of the professor and more than 50 hours of editing from our staff," explains Gilles Raimond. This added value for EPFL requires a significant investment from its professors.


An example to follow

The Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) of Lyon, the University of Ulm, Paris X as well as the IONIS Education group have all come to visit the offices of CEDE to better learn about the process of creating a MOOC. Production, selection of MOOCs, delays, costs, technology and all the facets of the work done by the staff at CEDE has been dissected and analyzed by delegations from the largest European universities. Why? Patrick Jermann concludes simply, "They came to see us because we’re six months ahead of them all."

To see the list of all MOOCs offered by EPFL: moocs.epfl.ch