The final countdown to the University of Southampton’s annual Digital Marketing MOOC is underway. As such, a few of this year’s Mentors have shared their experiences from last year to help prepare the new cohort.

Amanda Herron

Prior to attending the University of Southampton for my Digital Marketing MSc, I had participated in massive open online courses (MOOCs) and always found them valuable. Integrating the MOOC into my classroom learning continued to provide the same value I had received before: international collaboration and community learning. However, the opportunity to pair the MOOC course with in-person lectures created added value by encouraging a level of deeper analysis of my opinions and enabling me to understand a wider range of perspectives, all while challenging me to support my opinions to a greater extent through academic research.

I don’t believe in hindering the world from receiving great minds based on having the financial means and opportunity to learn in the ‘right’ university. Attendees of MOOCs aren’t receiving a ‘free’ education – it takes their own blood, sweat, and tears (or at least intense organisational skills and dedication) to obtain their goals. A degree is still valuable and MOOCs provide an opportunity for both current university students and informal learners alike to collaborate and challenge each other. I see the rise of MOOCs as an opportunity for students attending university to achieve a higher standard of learning through access to academic articles that are unavailable to the outside world. Incorporating the MOOC into my course provided an opportunity to evaluate what learning means to me and conclude that University is not about privilege, but about distinction.

Ashley Stout

Unlike Amanda, I had no previous involvement with MOOCs before my participation in the Digital Marketing course last year. The concept itself intrigued me, as the thought of “free higher education” was quite different to my experiences up to that point. However, don’t let the “free” aspect of this course fool you. The topics and concepts covered in the three-week course actually turned out to be a good representation of the fundamentals covered in our year-long MSc Digital Marketing degree (which cost just a smidge more).

Once the course started, I’ll admit it felt as if I had been living under a rock because the sheer amount of people joining us in the MOOC was astounding…

This level of participation had to be my favorite aspect of the MOOC. Because our fellow course-mates were so widespread, we were exposed to a variety of ideas and experiences in the discussions. I found that interacting with people from cultures so different to my own really helped to expand my views and opinions.

My one major piece of advice to new participants would be to get involved as much as possible! I’ve found that disagreeing and discussing with others is one of the best ways to grow. Don’t be afraid to introduce a new idea or (politely) argue during the course; you’ll probably find that your fellow participants are more open-minded than you might think!

Hannah Watts

The opportunity to take part in a MOOC as part of a formal assessment was a really exciting start to the MSc; not only did it spark and encourage discussion both online and off – it meant we were engaged in relevant topics and debates from the word go. Like Amanda, I was fairly familiar with MOOCs prior to this experience – and I too was enthused by the opportunity to integrate the online-offline learning experience. By doing so, I grasped a real understanding of how online activities can completely transform the dynamics of traditional classroom-based learning.

I found the game-like design of the MOOC particularly motivating as it helped and encouraged me to achieve the course goals. For example, the colour-changing progress bar meant I could better manage and control the learning process – I loved being able to visualise my progress and as a result of this I became more determined to stay on track and keep going. In fact, the visual, interactive elements of the course, like the map shared by Ashley and the short, sharp videos, were a great way to keep me interested and engaged throughout the course.

Having said this, in the early stages of the MOOC – voicing my opinion and sharing knowledge and ideas was something I found particularly daunting. The thought of contributing, as opposed to quietly consuming, pushed me out of my comfort zone, but I soon realised how much more I could get out of the experience by actively engaging in discussions with others.

What I soon came to realise was that the MOOC consisted of a community of people with shared interests, willing and keen to engage in conversation around marketing topics, from all walks of life. It highlighted the importance of finding the right people, on the right platforms to connect with.

Ultimately, I felt the blended approach meant there was a much greater level of student engagement – as we all had reason to exercise and experiment the knowledge gained in class. MOOCing is a great way to learn, meet others with shared interests and develop greater understanding about a subject in a more fun and interactive way.

If you would like to join the Digital Marketing MOOC you can register by following this link. The course begins 17 October.

The post Our Digital Marketing MOOC Experience appeared first on Digital Marketing MOOC.

Student Digital Champions Tim O’Riordan and Hannah Watts were the brains behind what was probably the first video broadcast using Periscope to support an online course in the UK – a real time discussion between the FutureLearn Digital Marketing MOOC educators Lisa Harris and Chris Phethean.

The MOOC asks learners to try out new social tools and think about how they may (or may not) work in a learning or a business context. So to demonstrate what this involves, we decided to give this relatively new social video broadcasting app a try – and naturally called in the Digichamps to lend an expert hand.

Periscope allows you to watch live videos from your mobile device and interact with the presenters in real time, either directly within the app or via Twitter. We’d had a go with the app a few times over the summer and found that it worked well in connecting with a reasonably large audience. We’d also seen Inger Mewburn on the EdX Surviving your PhD MOOC, and the BBC Outside Source broadcasts, and decided we were ready to take the plunge into a more planned approach to this new form of social broadcasting.

Online learning is often criticised as being a lonely activity, with limited opportunity for interaction with tutors and other learners. Asynchronous discussions within the learning platform can address this issue to some extent, but timely replies are not always forthcoming and learners’ attention moves on to the next section. We have used Google Hangouts successfully in previous runnings of our MOOCs – but these can be cumbersome to set up and while real time discussion between a small group of invited participants works really well, (Google’s limit is 10 participant windows) there is limited opportunity for the wider audience to interact with the presenters or each other.

We felt that the Digital Marketing MOOC was an ideal place to trial a Periscope discussion because potentially there is a double benefit to learners in this MOOC – marketing communications themselves are rapidly evolving as the technologies which allow video and time/location-specific applications converge. So we asked the learners to consider the value of the experiment as both a learning activity to them personally, and also as an example of how marketers might apply the same principles.

Early adopters of Periscope for marketing purposes are using it for “behind the scenes” coverage of key events, Q&A sessions for staff with senior management, demonstrations of new product development, addressing specific customer service issues etc.

Tim’s advice from behind the camera

Using Periscope is very straightforward; you just download the app to your mobile device, sign into Twitter, log in to Periscope and then start broadcasting. The interface design is uncluttered and we found our way around the controls and settings very well without any assistance. However if you need a helping hand, the app’s ‘Help Center’ provides unambiguous and well laid out guidance. In addition Periscopes’ web page contains privacy and terms of service information that are written in clear English – and are well worth a read.

Periscoping is very easy for ad hoc social interaction, but if you have an expectant audience and a message to deliver, you can’t leave much to chance. The plan was for Lisa and Chris to discuss questions from the MOOC and the live Twitter feed at a prearranged time (15:00 GMT, 5 November 2015). We’d had network problems with previous attempts, so we had an additional camera on stand-by to ensure we had something for our audience to watch if the broadcast failed.

With a crew of two (myself supervising the broadcast, and Hannah noting comments as they appeared – and passing on questions) we used an iPhone 5s as the broadcast camera set up in horizontal mode (Periscope broadcast in vertical video, but correct this on playback). In order to let our audience know where to find the broadcast (and with the iPhone pointing at a ‘holding screen’), we hit the ‘start broadcasting’ button 15 minutes before the discussion was due to begin. This automatically created a tweet on the Digital Marketing MOOC twitter account containing a link to the broadcast – which we copied and posted directly into the relevant section of the MOOC.

About 30 seconds before the start of the discussion I started recording on the standby camera, and used Quicktime to screen record the Periscope browser window. At 3pm the holding screen was removed from in front of the camera to reveal Lisa and Chris ready to start. Within seconds sound was turned on and the discussion could begin.

During the broadcast Lisa and Chris discussed comments from the previous week on the MOOC and were also able to answer questions posted on Twitter during the broadcast. Altogether we had over 90 viewers watching and a high number of interactions during transmission – plus some very positive feedback and sharing of relevant resources in the MOOC discussion board.

Overall we found Periscope an engaging and timely method to connect with our learners, like Jisc’s Sharon Cook we can envisage other uses on campus including:

Field trips
Learner feedback
Promoting research activity
Live campus tours before open days

However, there are a few caveats:

While Periscope’s terms of service prohibit broadcasting content you don’t own, there are concerns over the ease with which it could encourage copyright infringement as well as invasion of privacy. After all, anyone with the app can publically broadcast and share the precise location of anything or anyone they point their camera and microphone at. This may not be a big problem for everyday social users, but institutional users need to be aware of the potential for unknowing infringement.

When you use Periscope, you retain the rights to the content you produce, but you also licence Periscope and associated companies (including its parent, Twitter) to re-use your content in order to make it available to a worldwide audience. While your content may be held on any of the servers owned by Twitter anywhere in the world, your licence agreement is with Twitter’s European company, which is based in Ireland. It’s also worth noting that while your broadcast is public by default, you can limit your audience to your followers on Periscope – and you can block other Periscope users.

The purpose of the app is to provide a quick and easy way to broadcast video and audio to anyone in the world, and in order to do this some compromises need to be made. So, while your device may be capable of recording in HD, Periscope does not broadcast or record in HD, rather it uses the much lower 360p resolution. Even with this low resolution, if you’re not on WiFi, your device will use a large amount of data during a broadcast – we recorded around 3MB per minute during a recent session. Also, as others have noted – Periscope drains your battery. Previously we had used up 80% of our phone’s full charge in just over an hours broadcasting of a number of short sessions.

Because of these limitations we take a number of measures:

The video may be low res., but we make sure the sound is a good as we can get it. Audio uses up less bandwidth than video, and makes a huge difference to learner’s engagement and we use a separate, powered microphone plugged directly into our device using an iRig pre amplifier.

Away from our unlimited wifi – usually off campus – we keep broadcasts short to minimise network use.

We connect to power (via a 3m long USB lead) to ensure that our device keeps going throughout our broadcasts.

You may wonder why we went to such great lengths to record the broadcast. Firstly, Periscope broadcasts only stay online for 24 hours, so we needed a copy to put on YouTube for those who missed it. Also, while the iPhone records the video, the quality is quite poor – and it doesn’t record the questions, comments and other feedback that are visible in the Periscope broadcast. So we needed to record the browser window off screen at high resolution (MacBook Pro with Retina screen) to ensure we had a copy that could be used later in the course – or possibly to support later iterations. Finally, apologies for the jerkiness of the video – although we were on a very high speed network, this seems to be how Periscope currently works.

Hannah’s reflections on being a monitor

I really enjoyed the Periscope experiment we carried out as part of the Digital Marketing MOOC. I was responsible for monitoring the real-time audience interaction taking place within the Periscope app and on Twitter via the hashtag #FLdigital. I answered general questions and queries viewers had about the broadcast and notified the presenters of topical questions raised by the audience to be answered live.

My pre-broadcast responsibilities involved preparing tweets to invite and encourage audience participation, I saved these in a Google document and copied content to Twitter at the most appropriate times (including post-broadcast). However, next time I would ensure these were saved in drafts on Twitter to create a smoother more efficient way to post and interact with the audience.

During the broadcast I used my smartphone to monitor the Periscope activity and respond to comments made within the app. It is important you carefully observe this activity because comments appear on the side of the screen during the broadcast and disappear very quickly, as far as I am aware there is no record of these comments once they are gone. During future broadcasts I would screenshot activity I thought was particularly interesting. I also used my iPad to monitor Twitter activity and a trusty notepad to list questions to be passed to the presenters.

I monitored the sound of the broadcast via my smartphone but I experienced a slight hiccup at the beginning of the broadcast because my headphones were not plugged in and therefore, the sound created an echo on the live-stream recording. Other than that, I felt the broadcast ran very smoothly. I think the decision to start the broadcast 15 minutes early to allow the audience to prepare was very wise and worked  well for us because we were able to circulate the broadcast URL across various platforms, including the MOOC and social media.

I put together a blog post about using Periscope to enhance brand authenticity, and a short Storify:

Chris’s reflection as a presenter:

This was my first experience using Periscope, other than watching one broadcast when I first downloaded the app. I’ve participated in Google Hangouts before, and I was actually quite surprised by how much I preferred Periscope for this kind of broadcast. On Hangouts, I tend to feel like you can ‘lose’ your audience a bit, and it all turns into a bit of a videoconference between the participants, rather than a broadcast to the viewers. With Periscope, and perhaps because you are limited by how many people can realistically be involved, it feels much more focused on providing something short and snappy to the viewers, and having the chance to respond to some live feedback.

The process of setting up also seemed much more straightforward, and you don’t need to worry about finding out that one of your participants doesn’t have a Google account two minutes before the broadcast is due to start! This takes away some of the pressure on the participants, letting them focus more on the content rather than the technical setup.

The post Up Periscope! Supporting learning with live broadcasts appeared first on Digital Marketing MOOC.

I doubt anyone will disagree that furthering education can take a heavy toll on the bank account these days. There are articles galore exploring the reasons behind rising costs and cost-benefit analyses of different universities and degree programs. Even if you are currently paying to further your education, there may be courses outside of your curriculum that you would choose to explore, but additional costs deter you. For all these reasons above, I am surprised more students and non-students are not aware of or simply not participating in MOOCs, which bring a wealth of knowledge and opportunity to everyone. For those unaware, a MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course. For those simply not participating, here is your chance!

This month, our very own University of Southampton is featured in the BBC’s Make It Digital initiative with a course delving into the challenges and insights in Digital Marketing! A team of current students and myself will be a key part of the course, acting as facilitators, and bringing thousands of people around the globe into our university via the web.

Lisa Harris, Lead Educator on the MOOC, commented:

‘I’m really looking forward to working with Amanda and the whole student team to encourage learners to get the most out of this amazing opportunity.’

Southampton’s Digital Marketing MOOC begins October 19, but you can certainly join now, and I highly recommend that you do! We certainly look forward to seeing you and hearing your thoughts about the increasingly ubiquitous digital world we live in.

The post Got MOOC? appeared first on Digital Marketing MOOC.

Some agreed that behavioural targeting could end up being ‘creepy’ if it gets too accurate, much like the ‘uncanny valley’ hypothesis in robotics. The idea of self-created consumer profiles proved controversial. Many of the comments could see the appeal, but were still sceptical about whether it would take off as a viable alternative. In fact, many comparisons were made between the idea of self-created profiles and ‘good old fashioned market research’; the only twist being that it concerns a consumer segment of just one person.

Some comments flagged up the potential risks of self-authored profiles. From the perspective of marketers, they could be bad as they may be inaccurate. Some consumers might present a more ‘aspirational’ version of themselves, or might simply pollute their profiles with entirely fake information in order to disrupt the marketeers’ operations.

From the perspective of individuals, some raised the possibility that they could end up losing even more privacy by giving away even more information. This might include more intimate information about their personality, rather than just their purchases.

But others saw a win-win scenario for consumer privacy and digital marketing. One suggestion was to adopt a ‘hybrid’ model, where “the service tells you what it thinks based on your behavioural data and you have the opportunity to correct it”. Some predicted that despite lacking self-knowledge in many respects, individuals could create profiles that would be, on balance, more accurate than existing ones. However, the question remained about whether accuracy in itself is always good for the individual.

An interesting point raised was that there is always a gap between what people ‘want’ and what they actually do; sometimes our stated preferences differ from those we reveal through our behaviour. It’s not clear whether self-created profiles would strike a good balance between these two.

The fact that self-created profiles are being offered by commercial services raised some interesting questions. Some questioned the motivations and the business models of these services. Are they a fair deal, and how can they be trusted to manage the data responsibly? Another intriguing proposition was that by being offered some money for your personal data, even a small amount, you may end up valuing it even more. Which leads to a strange situation – many consumers happily give away their data for free, but as soon as they are offered some money for it, they may feel less inclined to share it at all.

For those who want to learn more about this topic, at the University of Southampton we researching the topics of transparency and control over personal data. We’re going to be analysing the themes discussed during this part of the MOOC. We’re also running a short study to explore the differences between self-created profiles and those based on prior behaviour. If you’d like to take part in that study, and get early access to the results of the research, we’ll be running it over the next few months. It will take just 5 minutes to complete!

The post Reflection on the personal data discussions appeared first on Digital Marketing MOOC.

As a student of Digital Marketing at the University of Southampton, when Lisa Harris informed me that I could take an online course on basics of digital marketing, I was sceptical. But the first day of the course changed everything.

Massive Open Online Course or MOOC as it is fondly known, is the concept of open course that can have unlimited number of participants and provide a platform to learn any subject from the basics of aviation to archaeology. I think success of any MOOC depends on the participants and sharing that happen through comments. The 3-week Digital Marketing MOOC that I am taking is hosted by the University of Southampton and started last week.

Why I love this course?

1. The biggest takeaways for me came from the comments of fellow participants. The course clocked around 10,000 comments by the middle of this week. Each one gave me a different perspective because the participants are from different countries. Insights actually made me to reflect on the similarities and differences.
2. Most of the online courses on digital marketing are directed towards glorifying the idea, but this course also discusses the challenges and allows space for criticising the concept. Things like privacy and ownership of digital assets are discussed in detail during the course
3. The use of storytelling and case study based approach makes the course compelling. Instead of lengthy monologues, the course is the combination of tiny vignettes of videos, articles and stories. For instance, we had an extensive case study of the National Trust and it was very fascinating.
4. I used my laptop to access the course, but the beauty is that you don’t need to have a computer to access this course. All you must have is a mobile and 3 hours of time every week.

MOOCs are a wonderful opportunity for people who like to know about different subjects but never have the chance to do a formal course. Futurelearn, the MOOC provider also allows you to get a certificate at the end of the course at a nominal price. I am intending to take a course on World War I next…no, maybe forensic science. Still thinking…

The post My experience with the Digital Marketing MOOC appeared first on Digital Marketing MOOC.

The storm before the calm! 1.55pm still prepping at #FLDigital hangout HQ :-) pic.twitter.com/YrXMkBcCRN

— Digital Marketing (@UoSFLdigital) October 22, 2014

But with seconds to spare, all was sorted…

@lisaharris @FutureLearn @UoSFLdigital #fldigital ~ Latest Issues in Digital Marketing – MOOC Live Discussion. pic.twitter.com/R3CvM7mL5H

— Big'Dee (@DamolaJohnson) October 22, 2014

A big thank you to our guest panelists:

–     Paul Harrigan, Associate Professor at the University of Western Australia, Perth (@drpaulharrigan)

–     Roisin McCarthy, Manager at Datatech Analytics

–     Simon Perry, Publisher, OnTheWight (@simonperry)

–     Russell Pert, Head of Digital for Southern Europe, Barclaycard.

You can watch the recording on our YouTube channel

Thankfully the connections and sound quality held up ok, in fact the most robust connection was with Paul in Perth rather than Simon in the Isle of Wight! It is really important though to check everything out beforehand – using the same kit and internet connection that you plan to use for real. Missing plugins and general G+ navigation issues can disrupt the best laid plans. Big “thank yous” are owed to Kate Dickens and Chris Phethean who did a great job with the logistics :-)

Some great tweets started pouring in:

#FLdigital Live Q&A: It's not a question of 'shall we' it's a question of 'we have to be, says Russell Pert from Barclaycard #socialmedia

— Rita Fevereiro (@RitaFevereiro) October 22, 2014

RT @DamolaJohnson: #FLdigital Live Streaming from @Unisouthampton. Connected live and learning from the Panelists! pic.twitter.com/qFN6TBst4Q

— Digital Marketing (@UoSFLdigital) October 22, 2014

Some good points coming out on the #FLDigital hangout. Subtle, positive engagement on social media seems to be the way forward

— Lisa Davidson (@lisajdavidson1) October 22, 2014

#fldigital @UoSFLdigital @FutureLearn ~ Latest Issues in Digital Marketing. Live streaming and discussion. pic.twitter.com/uJE7mGEHG6

— Big'Dee (@DamolaJohnson) October 22, 2014

Definitely agreeing that having purpose is everything on social…it's a long term strategy, not a quick fix #FLdigital

— Craig Butler (@SocialMajordomo) October 22, 2014

#fldigital @FutureLearn @UoSFLdigital pic.twitter.com/mYs29z9qeM

— Big'Dee (@DamolaJohnson) October 22, 2014

You need to know what You want to say and what is the best platform to do it. #FLdigital #livediscussion

— Alejandra CH (@AlejandraCH_) October 22, 2014

MT @DamolaJohnson: #fldigital Latest Issues in Digital Marketing Live Discussion pic.twitter.com/faNqokjZ4w < @drpaulharrigan one to frame!

— Lisa Harris (@lisaharris) October 22, 2014

#FLdigital Live event was very insightful. Great to get opinions of people from different areas. Good job! @UoSFLdigital

— Hashtag-Social (@h4shtagsocial) October 22, 2014

The post Well that was fun! appeared first on Digital Marketing MOOC.

Ivan says:

During my student life I had the honour of being part of a group of students called Digital Champions, (or “Digichamps”) whose role was to increase the awareness of Digital Literacies in the university amongst students, staff, lecturers and researchers.

Being part of that project helped me understand the advantages of including Digital Literacies as part of your daily activities as a student or researcher regardless of your academic background. It also helped me get the job of my dreams.

Before graduating I realised how paper CVs were becoming a thing of the past. From all the companies I applied to, less than 10% asked for a PDF or paper version of it, regardless of the role in question. Furthermore, I went only once to a face to face interview, the rest were done via Skype or Google Hangouts with recruiters in different parts of the world.

Web technologies in general were changing the job hunting dynamics. I had not had the need to look for a job for 6 years, therefore, it was a new world for me. My experience as a Digital Champion helped me enormously as I had access to the latest research on social media recruitment, digital literacies and personal branding.

Today I am a Solution Delivery Manager at Hootsuite in charge of getting our enterprise clients up and running providing them with customised training, setup and analytics services. By the way, I got my job thanks to LinkedIn.

Hootsuite is a social relationship platform that helps more than 10 million users around the world to manage their social media assets. In Hootsuite our mission is to “empower customers to transform messages into meaningful relationships”. Our platform helps companies and individuals build strong bridges with their followers or potential clients by streamlining the management of their social media channels in a collaborative environment.

It is really interesting how Social Media has evolved from a marketing or PR channel to what is described as a Social Organization, where employees across different departments have been granted access to social media channels following a unified strategy.

Something quite particular about our company is how the professional background of my colleagues is quite diverse. From teaching English in South Korea, to supervising the main sales channels of a huge international corporation, all of us have had experience using social media in the past and we all feel familiar and comfortable using it. Regardless of our previous roles, we were all in touch with new technologies that were not actually required to perform our duties.

In comparison, what I have seen with some of our clients is that the learning curve of their employees is quite steep as knowing about Social Media was not part of the job description when they joined the organization. Therefore, considerable time and resources are spent on both sides trying to take advantage of these communication channels.

Based on more than two hundred organisations that I have worked with, it is clear that Digital Literacies are now considered an advantageous skill to have regardless of the job you are aiming to get at any given company. The range of backgrounds of employees I have trained in the use of our dashboard varies from the “expected” community manager to the team in charge of supervising financial compliance of a privately held company.

As it stands, any employee of a company can become its main brand ambassador, but how would they do that without a working knowledge of social media? Equally important is to consider that as a company it will be time and resource consuming to train all the employees in effective social media use. Therefore it makes perfect sense for companies engaging in social media to hire people with prior knowledge of – and enthusiasm for – these technologies.

So what are you waiting for?? Participating in the MOOC is a great opportunity to build your networks and develop your online digital presence to impress your current or future employer!

The post Building a professional online profile appeared first on Digital Marketing MOOC.