The Competencies Expected of Instructors in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

Background: The aim of this study was to identify the instructor competencies required for teaching in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). A qualitative approach was applied to achieve this objective. Methods: Qualitative-inductive content analysis was used to identify the competencies of instructors in MOOCs. For this purpose, the articles related to the competence of instructors in MOOCs courses were first collected and the units of analysis were determined. In this respect, purposeful sampling and research criteria were applied to select 31 units from a total of 173 articles extracted from valid scientific databases. Data inclusion criteria limited the search to the articles with relevant topics published between 2006 and 2019. Reputable Persian and international databases were searched for the relevant data until theoretical data saturation was reached. An assessment of applicability and transferability was performed for data validation. Finally, the main categories were distinguished from the sub-categories, and a conceptual model was designed for identifying teachers’ competence in MOOCs. Results: The four main categories of competency obtained from data analysis were as follows: knowledge competencies (Dimension of Knowledge), professional skills (Instructional Content Development, Instructional Design, Evaluation, Communication, Participatory, Management, and Technical Skills), Professional attitude skills (Motivational and Emotional Skills) and the personality dimension of the instructors. Conclusion: This study draws out the possible implications of developing a curriculum in view of instructors’ competence in MOOCs with the goal of providing a comprehensive perspective on their performance in such courses.