Interviewing the MOOC's participants

In this spring I conducted some online interviews with the participants of two open online courses as part of my thesis data. The interviewees varied in professional background and their extent of participation in open online courses. While they were all good users of social media and web 2.0 tools, the way and purposes they incorporated those tools in their professional activities and educational and learning practices were different. Most of them have been participating in more than two (M)OOCs with different level of engagement. In each course the level of activities and the requirements for participation however were also varied. In one course, which two interviewees came from, there was a need for more active participation and preparing some reflections and final digital and online projects which required more involvement in use of tools and technology to fulfil the requirement.   
I did interviews on Skype, GTalk and one by phone and I used some online tools like Pamela for recording.

The whole process of interviewing was challenging though; for arranging practical preparation and technical resources but, also inspiring to go through participants’ experiences and perceptions of such open online environments and their interactions with resources and people from different parts of the world, using many forms of technologies and tools in the process of learning and collaboration.