Analysis of Korea-Massive Open Online Courses in medical and dental education

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to analyze the status and the instructional design strategies of medical and dental courses in Korea- Massive Open Online Course (K-MOOC), and to present a practical direction for application in future dental education. Among 30 courses categorized as medical education in K-MOOC as of December 2018, only three cases were selected for this study. The courses were analyzed based on the proposed instructional design strategies for facilitating online interaction among participants-instructors, teaching assistants, and learners. In addition, this study reviewed the current status of free online dentistry courses in MOOC including K-MOOC. The number of basic medical science courses was five in total, however, the dentistry courses in K-MOOC was not offered yet. Regarding the format, the medical courses teaching format was similar to a lecture-based traditional classroom, which was characterized with one-way content delivery style. However, the current courses were appropriately designed with the proposed instructional design strategies to facilitate online interaction. In addition, MOOC platforms had 11 dentistry courses in 2018, even though most of them started to operate the courses recently. The results of this study denote current scarcity of dental MOOCs that could have educational potential benefits from well-structured courses with rich media delivered online and encourage dental educators to consider MOOCs as alternative educational opportunities. In addition, it provides the instructional design strategies that should be considered in designing new MOOCs. It also provides a practical direction for the development of personalized learning dentistry courses in K-MOOC.