The use of massive open online courses of preparation to external independent evaluation

Abstract

The article provides a quantitative analysis of online courses, which are presented on the Ukrainian platforms of massive open online courses and which help students to prepare for External Independent Evaluation (EIE). We found that EIE is a mandatory testing performed to enter higher education institutions. One of the ways to prepare for External Independent Evaluation is to use a variety of electronic resources, including massive open online courses (MOOC).

 It was found that the advantages of MOOC are mass character, availability, variety of topics provided by online courses, quality educational content. Moreover, they are partially free. We found that the most popular Ukrainian platforms are Prometheus, EdEra, EDUGET. The online platforms, which were studied, provide total 21 online courses to prepare for EIE. The majority of such courses are presented on the EDUGET online platform (10 courses). Most online courses are developed to prepare for EIE in mathematics (8 courses) and English (5 courses). At the same time, there are no online courses to prepare for EIE on such a popular platform as Open University of Maidan.  

It was found that not all online platforms pay due attention to help students prepare for EIE. We analyzed the names of online courses on different platforms, which showed that they do not fully correspond to the names of the subjects that are taken during the External Independent Evaluation. We studied the stages of taking online courses on Ukrainian online platforms, starting from choosing the right platform to obtaining a certificate, if it is provided.

 In further research, we intend to analyze the structure and content of online courses in the Ukrainian language and literature, which is a mandatory subject for admission to higher education institutions.