Origins of life in the cosmic context: the first MOOC in astronomy developed in Brazil

Abstract

“Origins of life in the cosmic context” was the first one Astronomy MOOC in Portuguese-language. The launch took place in June 2016, initially counting more than 4,000 students, which gradually (and cumulatively) until the last session analyzed (august, 2019). This paper shows the MOOC methodology that already attended more than 150 thousands students and a discussion about the maintenance in a mentored and independent way. As a result, we found that the course completion rate was around 9%, which corroborates the literature, in addition to the predominance of higher education students and males. The students satisfaction level was high: on a scale of 0 to 5, satisfaction was assessed at 4.8. Moreover, the course has already transcended the virtual world barrier and have been used as a tool to aid astronomy learning in elementary and middle schools.

Keywords:
MOOC; instructional design; astronomy; astrobiology