In the MOOC world new concepts hatch every month, trying to find the Holy Grail of online learning. Last year edX adopted the new MIT concept of a MicroMasters credential: a series of graduate level courses offered by top universities to advance their career. The credential is credit-eligible and can accelerate a Master’s Degree if the learner is admitted. Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) decided to join this new development after an extensive elaboration on TU Delft’s online course design, educational and assessment policies, involvement of stakeholders inside and outside the organization and the underlying business model. The aim of this paper is to describe the lessons learnt in this process (adoption, development and running of the MicroMaster), its implications on TU Delft’s ambitions in open and online learning and the effect on campus programme admission and enrolment. This paper will focus on the Solar Energy Engineering MicroMasters, a programme of four MOOCs and a capstone project. Learners following the whole programme and successfully finish their exam receive a MicroMasters credential. Learners who apply to the Master of Science program Sustainable Energy Technology (SET) or the Master of Science program Electrical Engineering (track: Electrical Power Engineering) holding this credential, can send a formal ECTS waiver request to get accepted for part of the on campus Master Programme at TU Delft. @en

In the Interaction Equivalency Theorem (IET), Anderson proposed that students are likely to achieve different levels of satisfaction depending on the interaction intensity inside a course (student-student, student-content, or student-teacher interaction). Although higher interaction intensity could lead to a more satisfying learning experience, this may not be as cost- or time effective as less interactive learning sequences. However, the research done so far about the IET has not validated this thesis statement. Therefore, we aim to define a methodological research approach which would allow us to identify different types of interaction and its intensity inside Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), in order to confirm Anderson’s thesis. As MOOCs are by definition massive, i.e. many people enrol in them, they provide an opportunity for exploration of hypotheses that can prove to be more challenging to research in other environments, such as the IET. Furthermore, as virtually all student behaviour is recorded, measuring different types of interaction is easier and can be much more systematic, as the same approach can then be applied across myriads of online courses. Since it is challenging to determine what can be considered a high, medium or low level of interaction, we also aim to define an approach that will allow us to do that.@en

In 2013 Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) started to offer Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on the EdX platform. One of the main principles in the MOOC development process was to publish all educational resources under an open license (Creative Commons License) (Ouwehand, 2015). This aligned with TU Delft’s Open Access Policy. Another important starting point in the MOOC development process was the aim to improve campus education by integrating MOOC content in those courses. The impact of MOOCs concerns not only the world outside the university, but more importantly also within the university. Especially for a traditional brick-and-mortar research-based university, like TU Delft, this is a big gain: education has become more important. In the past three years it has become clear that developing a MOOC has led lecturers to re-think their approach towards teaching and to integrate MOOC materials in campus education, which has impact on the way they teach on campus. MOOCs are used on campus in different ways, from a small addition to an existing course to a full integration into a completely redesigned campus course. Moreover, some teachers became conscious of the importance of educational resources under CC License and started to use material from other universities. One of the faculties created a course which uses MOOC materials to help the students to prepare for a master program. This paper describes the way in which MOOCs have been used in campus education and the impact this has had on teaching and learning. @en