This study of eight MOOCs (2014–2018) at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) offers a rare x-ray of digital teaching practices: it combines platform analytics (course structures, logs, user participation) with faculty perspectives to show how the well-known “video pill” serves as both the symbol of innovation and its greatest bottleneck.
Despite broad disciplinary variety, the didactic repertoire ended up concentrated around HTML pages and videos, with more advanced interactive components (peer assessment, generative tasks) largely underused. The result: a clear gap between the transformative potential attributed to MOOCs and the pedagogical implementation actually achieved.
Three strategic shortcomings emerge sharply:
- Media literacy: scripting, synthesizing, and delivering meaningful content in 6–8 minutes demands communicative skills that the training provided—overly focused on aesthetics and technicalities—does not address.
- Organizational support: while infrastructure (e.g., a Polimedia studio) exists, there is a lack of specialized staff and formal recognition of the workload involved.
- Pedagogical gap: the theoretical distinctions between cMOOCs, tMOOCs, and xMOOCs blur in practice into linear, content-centered designs with standard quizzes.
Additionally, edX’s horizontal navigation model limits pedagogical appropriation, especially for faculty used to vertical platforms like Moodle.
To move forward, the focus must shift from simply “making videos” to building open learning ecologies. This involves: integrated training (media literacy + active pedagogy + learning analytics), diversifying course components (peer review, OER co-creation, micro-tasks), developing nuanced interaction metrics beyond completion rates, and implementing institutional policies that formally acknowledge the design and maintenance effort.
Only by doing so can the effort poured into the audiovisual pill become a lever for more collaborative, flexible, and sustainable practices in digital higher education.
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How to Cite: Freitas Cortina, A., & Paredes Labra, J. (2022). Challenges of Multimedia Production in MOOCs. An Interpretive Case Study on the Faculty Perspectives. RIED-Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, 25(1), 59–79. https://doi.org/10.5944/ried.25.1.30840
