Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series - DORA 4RI

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Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series - DORA 4RI
987759   EAU    ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

                                             Delivering WASH education at scale:
                                             evidence from a global MOOC series

                                             FABIAN SUTER               and CHRISTOPH LÜTHI

   Fabian Suter is the manager               Abstract The water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) sector is facing a shortfall
   of the digital learning                   of several million appropriately skilled professionals. Massive open online courses
   programme at Sandec, the                  (MOOCs) can play a crucial role in addressing this. This paper presents the case
   department of “Sanitation,
                                             study of the MOOC series “Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development”,
   Water and Solid Waste for
   Development” at Eawag.                    which has reached over 120,000 learners within six years. It has attracted mainly
                                             well-educated, employed learners, under 34 years old, from Asia, Latin America
   Address: Eawag – the                      and Africa. Underrepresentation of female learners remains a challenge. While
   Swiss Federal Institute
                                             MOOCs have proven excellent for delivering WASH education at scale, some
   of Aquatic Science and
   Technology, Überlandstr.                  alternative formats (e.g. blended learning, small private online courses) allow more
   133, Dübendorf 8600,                      collaborative, interactive learning environments. Three practical examples from
   Switzerland; email: fabian.               Nigeria, Indonesia and Mozambique indicate the potential for synergies among
   suter@eawag.ch                            MOOCs and further learning formats. With the global shift towards digital learning
   Christoph Lüthi is the                    due to the COVID-19 pandemic, MOOCs have gained further traction.
   department head of Eawag-
   Sandec and leads the                      Keywords  capacity development / digital learning / MOOC / WASH
   research group “Strategic
   Environmental Sanitation
   Planning”.

   Email: christoph.luethi@
   eawag.ch                                  I. Introduction

                                             The immense capacity gaps in human resources in the water, sanitation
                                             and hygiene (WASH) sector(1) are a longstanding issue. In 1991, the UN
   1. In this paper, we define               Development Programme (UNDP) and UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water
   “WASH sector” as the group                Education in Delft organized a symposium on water sector capacity
   of professionals supporting
   the delivery of water and                 development, which highlighted the gaps in education and training
   sanitation services and hygiene           opportunities for WASH professionals in low- and middle-income countries
   promotion.                                (LMICs).(2) In 2007, the United Kingdom’s International Development
   2. IHE/UNDP (1991), “A strategy           Committee argued that the lack of institutional, organizational and
   for water sector capacity
                                             individual capacity at the national and local levels is a more serious issue
   building”, Proceedings of the
   UNDP Symposium, Delft, 3–5                for sustaining sector targets than the lack of financial resources. Likewise,
   June.                                     the 2012 United Nations GLAAS report found that only 27 of 67 countries
                                             analysed had sufficient staff to operate and maintain their urban drinking
                                             water systems (and only 11 countries had enough employees for their
                                             rural systems).(3) Clearly, capacity development in most LMICs has not
   3. WHO (2012), UN-Water                   kept pace with the rising need for human resources and well-trained staff
   Global Annual Assessment of
                                             for both rural and urban WASH services.
   Sanitation and Drinking Water
   (GLAAS) 2012 Report: The                       The most relevant and up-to-date research on human resource
   Challenge of Extending and                capacity gaps in the sector was published by the International Water
   Sustaining Services, Geneva.              Association (IWA) in 2014 as an outcome of the multi-year research
                                             project known as the Human Resources Capacity Gap Study. The final

   Environment & Urbanization Copyright © 2021 International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).                 1
           https://doi.org/10.1177/0956247820987759
   1–18. DOI: 10.1177/0956247820987759            www.sagepublications.com
Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series - DORA 4RI
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

report(4) provided an in-depth analysis of human resource gaps in Africa          4. IWA (2014), An Avoidable
                                                                                  Crisis: WASH Human Resource
and the Asia-Pacific region, using a consistent methodology. The study
                                                                                  Capacity Gaps in 15 Developing
was a wake-up call for the sector to address the serious shortages of human       Economies, The Hague.
resources that risk undermining progress in increasing access to safe water
and sanitation for all. The poor situation surrounding the capacity of
institutions involved in water provision and sanitation services is most
severe in sub-Saharan Africa, and the report estimates a staff shortfall of
almost 800,000 professionals to meet universal WASH coverage in the 15
countries included in the study. A key message of the report is that there
can be no sustained progress in achieving Sustainable Development Goal
6, on clean water and sanitation for all, without effective human resource
management and training of the right number and calibre of people.
     For urban areas, the latest report on “Progress in Drinking Water,
Sanitation and Hygiene” by the Joint Monitoring Programme estimates a
current coverage of 85 per cent for basic sanitation services and 97 percent
for basic drinking water services. (These figures, however, often fail to
reflect the lack of acceptable provision in the informal settlements that can
house large proportions of the urban population in many towns and cities
in LMICs, and the water indicators fail to take account of quality.(5)) Despite   5. Weststrate, Johanna, Geske
the progress made in recent years, the current pace does not suffice to           Dijkstra, Jasper Eshuis, Alberto
                                                                                  Gianoli and Maria Rusca (2019),
achieve universal coverage by 2030.(6) Urban poverty, increasing population       “The Sustainable Development
density in cities, and rapid urbanization outpacing infrastructure and service    Goal on water and sanitation:
provision are some of the key challenges calling for an integrated approach       learning from the Millennium
                                                                                  Development Goals”, Social
providing sustainable solutions for basic urban services, such as sanitation,     Indicators Research Vol 143,
water supply, solid waste management and stormwater drainage.(7) The              No 2, pages 795–810; also
planning and implementation of these solutions in the coming decade               Adams, Ellis Adjei (2018),
requires reaching professionals and students at scale.                            “Thirsty slums in African cities:
                                                                                  household water insecurity in
     Massive open online courses (MOOCs) entered the global educational           urban informal settlements of
landscape in 2012 with the revolutionary promise of offering free access          Lilongwe, Malawi”, International
to higher education for anyone with internet access. With their scale-            Journal of Water Resources
                                                                                  Development Vol 34, No 6,
independent design and open philosophy, they seemed predestined to                pages 869–887.
make an important contribution to closing the capacity gap in the WASH            6. UNICEF/WHO (2019),
sector. However, the transition from ideal to reality has raised legitimate       Progress on Household
questions, specifically on whether the scalable format of MOOCs has               Drinking Water, Sanitation and
been achieved at the expense of equity.                                           Hygiene 2000-2017: Special
                                                                                  Focus on Inequalities, New
     This article provides an overview on the history of MOOCs and                York.
discusses their potential for the WASH sector with a case study of the            7. Narayan, Abishek and Lüthi,
MOOC series “Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development”                   Christoph (2020), “Solving urban
(WASH-MOOC series), developed by Eawag-Sandec, the Swiss Federal                  sanitation – sustainably and
                                                                                  equitably”, Water Environment
Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology. The case study analyses the          Federation Vol 43, No 4, pages
learner demographics of this globally available WASH programme, which             18–21.
has attracted over 120,000 enrolled learners within six years, and critically
reflects on challenges, such as low completion rates, overrepresentation
of already privileged learners, the relatively low number of MOOCs
produced in LMICs, and the trade-off between scale-independent design
and contextualized learning. The article concludes with a discussion
about the future of MOOCs in light of the current shift towards digital
learning in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

II. Methodology

A case study approach has been selected to gain a better understanding
of the opportunities and challenges of MOOCs for the WASH sector,
2
Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series - DORA 4RI
D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

                                   because it allows for investigating a contemporary phenomenon in
8. Yin, Robert (2009), Case        depth and within its real-life context.(8) With its broad range of topics
Study Research: Design and         (water treatment, sanitation, faecal sludge management, solid waste
Methods, SAGE Publications,
London, 319 pages.                 management), global reach and continuous high enrolment numbers
                                   over several years, the WASH-MOOC series is well suited to provide a
                                   thorough insight into the MOOC phenomenon and its implications
                                   for the WASH sector. The data used in the case study are drawn from
9. Coursera is the largest         Coursera’s(9) course dashboards between April 2014 and May 2020, as
MOOC platform, offering over       well as from surveys answered by learners at the beginning (n = 4,300)
4,500 courses to 64 million
                                   and the end (n = 3,143) of all courses of the WASH-MOOC series.(10)
learners globally (https://www.
coursera.org).                     An important limitation of the case study is the lack of post-course
10. The surveys almost             data measuring the impact of the series on WASH professionals and
exclusively contained multiple-    learners.
choice questions, with the
exception being an open-ended
question in the final survey
asking for recommendations on      III. Moocs – A Brief Overview
how to improve the courses.
                                   When MOOCs emerged in 2012, they challenged the existing educational
                                   models by promising free access to education and equal opportunity
                                   to learners globally. Within months, the first courses offered on newly
11. Class Central provides         founded MOOC platforms reached over one million learners.(11) The rapid
regular updates on overall         development triggered a debate about disruption and democratization
MOOC learners and courses
across major platforms (https://   of education, and by the end of the year, the New York Times famously
www.classcentral.com),             declared 2012 to be the year of the MOOC.(12) Enthusiasts highlighted
including the first major MOOC     the “potential to unlock a billion more brains to solve the world’s biggest
platforms: Coursera (https://
www.coursera.org), edX (http://
                                   problems”,(13) while sceptics identified MOOCs’ essential feature as
www.edx.org), and Udacity          “short, unsophisticated video chunks, interleaved with online quizzes”(14) and
(https://www.udacity.com).         considered them a threat to academia.
12. Pappano, Laura (2012), “The         The sudden rise of MOOCs is based on experimentation over several
year of the MOOC”, New York        years with technologies and pedagogical concepts for online learning.
Times, 2 November, accessed
15 July 2020 at https://www.       Two early initiatives deserve special attention. In 2008, Downes and
nytimes.com/2012/11/04/            Siemens explored new approaches enabled by the internet and social
education/edlife/massive-open-     media. They offered a course on “Connectivism and Connectivity
online-courses-are-multiplying-
at-a-rapid-pace.html.
                                   Knowledge” at the University of Manitoba, Canada to 24 paying students
                                   on campus and 2,700 non-paying online students in parallel. The
13. Friedman, Thomas
(2013), “Revolution hits the       instructors set up several course sites, including Moodle forums, video
universities”, New York Times,     streaming channels and a Wiki. In addition, learners established their
26 January, accessed 15 July       own learning spaces, such as blogs and Facebook groups. This course
2020 at https://www.nytimes.
com/2013/01/27/opinion/            coined the term “massive open online course” and is regarded as the
sunday/friedman-revolution-        pioneer for “cMOOCs” (connectivist massive open online courses) that
hits-the-universities.html.        focus on interaction and connectivity by, according to McAuley et al.,
14. Vardi, Moshe (2012), “Will     building “on the active engagement of several hundred to several thousand
MOOCs destroy academia?”,
                                   ‘students’ who self-organize their participation according to learning goals,
Communications of the ACM
Vol 55, No 11, page 5.             prior knowledge and skills, and common interests”.(15) In 2011, Stanford
15. McAuley, Alexander, Bonnie     University created the first “xMOOC” (eXtended massive open online
Stewart, George Siemens            course) by successfully exploring the potential of reaching a global
and Dave Cormier (2010),           audience at scale with free online courses. Three almost simultaneously
The MOOC Model for Digital
Practice, University of Prince
                                   launched courses on artificial intelligence, data science and machine
Edward Island, Charlottetown,      learning reached over 100,000 learners within two months. The courses
64 pages, page 4.                  focused on knowledge transfer from teacher to learner and were offered
                                   on centralized platforms where students could access new videos
                                   every week, and complete automated multiple-choice quizzes and
                                   programming assignments.

                                                                                                                  3
Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series - DORA 4RI
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

     Porter’s definition of MOOCs exemplifies early MOOC definitions,
emphasizing the scale-independent design of MOOCs and the intention
of offering open education:

-   Massive: MOOCs are intended to be run at scale, with hundreds or even
    thousands of participants and without any limit to student numbers being
    imposed.
-   Open: MOOCs are intended to be open—with the word ‘open’ used to
    imply that access to MOOC is both free of charge and also that access to
    MOOCs is unrestricted. [. . .]
-   Online: MOOCs are delivered completely online and involve no face-to-
    face contact. [. . .]
-   Course: One of the key attributes that differentiates MOOCs from an open
    educational resource is that they have the characteristics of a traditional
    course—they run during a specific time period, based upon prescribed
    content, and instruction is provided to the student during that period of time.
    As with traditional courses, there is usually also an element of assessment
    included in MOOCs, and this may include some form of accreditation.(16)           16. Porter, Sarah (2015),
                                                                                      What Are MOOCs?, Chandos
                                                                                      Publishing, Waltham, 156
     As MOOCs have grown in popularity, several alternative definitions               pages, page 4.
and taxonomies have been proposed in the literature. Clark expanded
Siemens’ distinction between “cMOOCs” and “xMOOCs” into eight not
mutually exclusive categories of MOOCs according to their pedagogy (e.g.,
groupMOOCs that aim to increase student retention, adaptiveMOOCs
using adaptive algorithms to offer personalized learning experiences,
transferMOOCs mimicking a traditional lecture).(17) Conole’s classification           17. Clark, Donald (2013),
scheme is based on 12 dimensions, such as degree of openness, scale                   “MOOCs: taxonomy of 8
                                                                                      types of MOOC”, accessed
of participation, or use of multimedia.(18) Pilli and Admiraal propose a              20 July 2020 at http://
taxonomy that positions MOOCs according to their level of openness and                donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.
massiveness. They differentiate between large-scale, more open courses                com/2013/04/moocs-
                                                                                      taxonomy-of-8-types-of-mooc.
and small-scale, less open courses.(19) Liyanagunawardena follows a more
                                                                                      html.
learner-centred approach and proposes a taxonomy with 13 categories
                                                                                      18. Conole, Grainne (2014), “A
covering information provided to learners before entering a course (e.g.,             new classification of MOOCs”,
mode of assessment, ratings, use of multimedia).(20) The diversity of                 The International Journal for
taxonomies underlines the difficulty in accurately classifying MOOCs.                 Innovation and Quality in
                                                                                      Learning Vol 3, No 3, pages
     The costs for production and delivery of MOOCs are highly context-               65–77.
specific. In a study focusing mostly on MOOCs produced in the US,                     19. Pilli, Olga and Wilfried
Hollands and Tirthali found overall costs ranging from US$ 38,980 to                  Admiraal (2016), “A taxonomy
325,330 per course and costs per completer of US$ 74 to 272.(21) Human                of Massive Open Online
resources, video production and acquiring access to a MOOC platform are               Courses”, Contemporary
                                                                                      Educational Technology Vol 7,
considered key cost drivers.                                                          No 3, pages 223–240.
     After an initial debate about MOOCs, which was based on anecdotal                20. Liyanagunawardena,
evidence rather than on robust data, a growing number of empirical                    Tharindu (2019), “A MOOC
studies has started to provide insight on what happens when thousands of              taxonomy based on
                                                                                      classification schemes of
people are learning with the same educational material. Three challenges              MOOCs”, European Journal of
of particular relevance are low completion rates, overrepresentation of               Open, Distance and e-Learning
already privileged learners and the relatively low number of MOOCs                    Vol 22, No 1, pages 85–103.
produced in LMICs.                                                                    21. Hollands, Fiona and
     According to Jordan, the completion rates for MOOCs are 6.5 per cent             Devayani Tirthali (2014),
                                                                                      “Resource requirements
on average, consistent across university rank and total enrolment, and                and costs of developing
completion is negatively correlated with course length.(22) A study by Reich          and delivering MOOCs”,
and Ruipérez-Valiente, analysing 261 courses with 5.63 million learners,              The International Review
                                                                                      of Research in Open and
offered between 2012 and 2018 on edX, reveals that completion rates did
4
Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series - DORA 4RI
D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

Distributed Learning Vol 15, No     not improve over time and only 52 per cent of enrolled learners actually
5, pages 113–133.
                                    started the course.(23) MOOCs have been repeatedly criticized for their low
22. Jordan, Katy (2014), “Initial   completion rates when compared to traditional university courses. However,
trends in enrolment and
completion of Massive Open          critiques focusing exclusively on completion rates tend to overlook the fact
Online Courses”, International      that auditing a MOOC or other forms of non-completion might still offer
Review of Research in Open          a valuable learning experience, and one that suits the learner’s intention.
and Distributed Learning Vol 15,
No 1, pages 133–160.
                                    Low completion rates of MOOCs are not problematic as long as learner
23. Reich, Justin and José
                                    feedback is good. A simple comparison of dropout rates between MOOCs
Ruipérez-Valiente (2019), “The      and traditional lectures, without considering learner intention and format-
MOOC pivot”, Science Vol 363,       specific incentives, can be misleading.
No 6423, pages 130–131.                  The well-documented overrepresentation of more affluent and better-
24. Liyanagunawardena,              educated MOOC learners(24) is challenging the initial promise of MOOCs to
Tharindu and Shirley Williams
(2013), “The impact and reach       democratize education by removing such hurdles as wealth, credentials or
of MOOCs: a developing              geographic location. There is an estimated global digital population of 4.1
countries’ perspective”,            billion persons, yet a large proportion of global learners are currently unable
eLearning Papers Vol 1, No
33, pages 38–46; also Hansen,
                                    to learn with MOOCs or other digital learning formats, due to the lack of
John and Justin Reich (2015),       affordable broadband internet, technology issues or deficiencies in digital
“Democratizing education?           learning literacy.(25) The trend towards monetizing MOOCs with paywalls
Examining access and usage          for course content and certificates, micro-credentials and degrees is creating
patterns in massive open
online courses”, Science            additional hurdles for less affluent learners. At the same time, organizations
Vol 350, No 6265, pages             have successfully designed and offered MOOCs for disadvantaged learner
1245–1248.                          populations. Based on an analysis of a globally diverse set of studies and
25. United Nations Economic         reports, Lambert provides an overview of promising approaches tackling
and Social Council (2020),
Progress towards the
                                    inequity in MOOCs, including learner-centred and multilingual course
Sustainable Development             design, courses offered at no cost and personal support provided to learners.(26)
Goals, report of the Secretary-          A repeatedly published critique refers to the tendency of MOOCs
General prepared for the 2020       to embed Western-centric epistemologies; this perspective calls for a
session, 19 pages, accessed 14
July 2020 at https://undocs.org/    more pluralistic approach, including increased MOOC production in
en/E/2020/57.                       LMICs.(27) Zhang et al. identify the concentration of MOOC production
26. Lambert, Sarah (2020), “Do      in high-income countries and the misalignment with local cultures,
MOOCs contribute to student         languages, pedagogies and contexts as the most critical challenge of
equity and social inclusion? A
systematic review 2014–18”,
                                    MOOCs.(28) In 2016, Abidi et al. expressed their surprise regarding the
Computers & Education Vol           small number of MOOCs produced in LMICs and, based on their practical
145, 17 pages.                      experience gained as MOOC producers at the Aga Khan University in
27. Adam, Taskeen (2019),           Pakistan, published a roadmap for offering more MOOCs from LMIC
“Digital neocolonialism and         institutions.(29) In recent years, universities and training institutes in
massive open online courses
(MOOCs): colonial pasts and         LMICs have increasingly positioned themselves as content producers.
neoliberal futures”, Learning,      The proliferation of affordable smartphones and mobile data plans have
Media and Technology Vol 44,        enabled learners at scale to access MOOCs also in the absence of reliable
No 3, pages 365–380.
                                    landline infrastructure. Today, MOOC platforms based in LMICs (e.g.,
28. Zhang, Ke, Curtis Bonk,
                                    SWAYAM in India, MéxicoX, ThaiMOOC, IndonesiaX, etc.) are offering
Thomas Reeves and Thomas
Reynolds (2020), “MOOCs             thousands of courses, which are reaching millions of learners. Highly
and open education in the           popular learning apps (e.g., Byju’s in India, Kytabu in Kenya) further
global South: successes and         underline the trend towards digital learning.
challenges”, in MOOCs and
Open Education in the Global             Over the course of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed
South, Taylor & Francis, New        education on a global scale and led to a distinctive shift towards digital
York, pages 1–14.                   learning. The UN estimates that over 90 per cent of global learners on
29. Abidi, Syed, Aamna              all levels have been affected by school closures caused by COVID-19.(30)
Pasha, Greg Moran and Syed
                                    During the crisis, enrolment numbers for MOOCs have drastically
Ali (2017), “A roadmap for
offering MOOC from an LMIC          increased worldwide;(31) universities that produced COVID-19-dedicated
institution”, Learning, Media       MOOCs for a broader audience (e.g., Imperial College London), or
and Technology Vol 42, No 4,        specifically for health professionals (e.g., Javeriana University School of
pages 500–505.
                                    Medicine in Bogotá), have reached thousands of learners. According to the
                                                                                                                    5
Delivering WASH education at scale: evidence from a global MOOC series - DORA 4RI
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

World Bank, the crisis is an unprecedented shock to education, but also             30. See reference 25.
provides an opportunity to build stronger and more equitable educational            31. In its annual conference on
systems.(32) At the same time, there is also a serious risk that the pandemic       24 April 2020, Coursera stated
                                                                                    that there had been over 10
and the predicted global recession will further increase the digital divide,        million course enrolments in
and severely impede achieving SDG 4, which seeks to “Ensure inclusive and           30 days, an increase of 644 per
equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.   cent year over year.
                                                                                    32. World Bank (2020), The
                                                                                    COVID-19 Pandemic: Shocks
                                                                                    to Education and Policy
IV. Case study – Mooc Series “Sanitation, Water and                                 Responses, Washington, DC.
Solid Waste for Development”
In 2014, Eawag-Sandec launched the WASH-MOOC series with the goal
of providing free access to high-quality WASH education at any time and
in any place. The series is primarily designed for WASH professionals and
students in LMICs and consists of four courses on water treatment, sanitation
planning, solid waste management and faecal sludge management:(33)                  33. For more information:
                                                                                    https://www.eawag.ch/mooc.
-   Introduction to Household Water Storage and Treatment
    (HWTS-MOOC) covers the most important water treatment methods
    at the household level, successful implementation strategies, and
    means of assessing the impact of Household Water Treatment and Safe
    Storage (HWTS). (https://www.coursera.org/learn/water-treatment).
-   Planning & Design of Sanitation Systems and Technologies
    (Sanitation-MOOC) deals with how to plan for urban sanitation
    at the city and neighbourhood levels, and provides an overview of
    different sanitation system and technology configurations. The
    course is offered in parallel in English and French. (English version:
    https://www.coursera.org/learn/sanitation; French version: https://
    www.coursera.org/learn/sanitation-fr)
-   Municipal Solid Waste Management in Developing Countries
    (Solid Waste-MOOC) provides an overview of the municipal solid
    waste management situation in LMICs. It covers key elements of the
    waste management system, such as its technical, environmental,
    social, financial and institutional aspects. (https://www.coursera.org/
    learn/solid-waste-management)
-   Introduction to Faecal Sludge Management (FSM-MOOC)
    focuses on what can be done to work toward solutions for faecal sludge
    management in LMICs. It includes an introduction to faecal sludge
    management; covers the engineering fundamentals and required
    information for the design and selection of technologies, especially for
    non-sewered urban and peri-urban contexts; and provides an overview of
    innovation in the sector. (https://www.coursera.org/learn/faecalsludge)

     The courses are managed in close collaboration by content and
digital learning experts at Eawag-Sandec. They have been produced in
partnership with Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and
its Center for Digital Education, which spearheaded MOOC production
in continental Europe. Inclusiveness is a priority of the courses and is
being targeted through consistent efforts to make the courses accessible
to a multilingual and culturally diverse group of learners, as well as a
collaborative effort to engage with global sector specialists (Photo 1).
Course content is continuously updated in order to promptly embrace
new sector developments (Photos 2 and 3). Free access to the complete
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D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

                                                                    PHOTO 1
                                      Charles Niwagaba from Makerere University, Uganda presenting
                                      a video lecture on non-sewered sanitation in sub-Saharan Africa

                                      © Eawag-Sandec (2020).

                                    educational material is offered to all institutions that aim to use the
                                    WASH-MOOC series for educational purposes.
                                         The WASH MOOCs are available for free on the learning platform
                                    Coursera as five-week courses with an estimated workload of 25 hours
                                    each. During the first two years, courses were available exclusively during
                                    the course period of five weeks plus an extra week to prepare for the
                                    final exam. Course materials were uploaded afresh at the beginning of
                                    each week. Since 2016, the courses have been continuously offered in
                                    session format, allowing learners to join a course throughout the whole
                                    year. Each session has fixed start and end dates with suggested deadlines,
                                    incentivizing learners to progress through the course together. Enrolled
                                    learners get immediate access to the full course including videos, readings,
                                    discussion forums and assessments. Due to the short average attention
                                    span in video-based learning, the video lectures are split up into modules
                                    of 6 to 10 minutes and enriched with interactive elements (e.g., quiz
34. Geri, Nitza, Amir Winer and     questions, discussion prompts).(34) Learners can test their progress online
Beni Zaks (2017), “Challenging      with multiple-choice quizzes, practical assignments and a final exam.
the six-minute myth of online
video lectures: Can interactivity
                                    Discussion forums serve as interaction platforms. Learners who complete
expand the attention span           the full series receive a free Statement of Accomplishment from Eawag-
of learners?”, Online Journal       Sandec. In addition, Coursera offers an optional course certificate for US$
of Applied Knowledge                49. The courses are offered in English with subtitles in English, French,
Management Vol 5, No 1, pages
101–111.                            Spanish and Portuguese. Further subtitles (e.g., Hindi, Bangla, Russian)
                                    have been added to individual courses.

                                    a. Reaching WASH learners at scale

                                    Overall, the series has reached 121,649 enrolled learners within six years.
                                    Three courses launched in 2014 and 2015 attracted several thousand
                                                                                                                   7
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

                              PHOTO 2
    Rick Johnston and Sara Marks in the video studio at EPFL record-
               ing a module on water treatment methods

    © Fabian Suter (2015).

                              PHOTO 3
      Animation in the Sanitation-MOOC illustrating the sanitation
                             service chain

    © Eawag-Sandec (2020).

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D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

                                                                    Figure 1
                                       WASH-MOOC series – cumulative enrolled learners per course

                                     SOURCE: Coursera dashboards of the WASH-MOOC series (April 2014–May 2020).

35. The HWTS-MOOC offered          learners within a limited period of six weeks.(35) The full potential of the
in 2014 and 2015 and the           WASH MOOCs, though, came into play when the courses were offered
Sanitation-MOOC offered in
2015 reached 20,359 enrolled       continuously from 2016 onwards. Since then, the growth rate has been
learners.                          constantly high, reaching on average 1,581 new learners every month from
                                   January 2016 to February 2020. In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic
                                   led to a sudden expansion of enrolment numbers, increasing them fourfold.
                                   It is yet unclear if the current growth rate of 5,000 to 6,000 new learners per
                                   month is temporary or the beginning of a long-lasting trend.
                                         Figure 1 represents the substantially different enrolment numbers per
                                   course. Most learners have enrolled in the Solid Waste-MOOC (59,995
                                   learners). This is followed by the Sanitation-MOOC in English (25,908
                                   learners) and HWTS-MOOC (24,873 learners). The FSM-MOOC covers
                                   a more specialized topic, and, hence, has attracted a smaller audience
                                   (6,909 learners). Compared to its English counterpart, the Sanitation-
                                   MOOC offered in French is reaching considerably fewer learners (3,994
                                   learners).

                                   b. WASH MOOC learners = young, well educated, employed,
                                   male and from LMICs

                                   Glass and colleagues, along with other observers, describe typical MOOC
                                   learners as young, male, well educated, employed, and originating from
36. Glass, Chris, Mitsue           a high-income country.(36) This description supports the argument that
Shiokawa-Baklan and Andrew         MOOCs contribute to the digital divide rather than democratizing
Saltarelli (2016), “Who takes
MOOCs?”, New Directions for
                                   education. The analysis of the learner demographics in the WASH-MOOC
Institutional Research Vol 2015,   series shows that this description is an accurate representation of learners
No 167, pages 41–55.               in terms of age, gender, education and work status. Between 76 and 80
                                   per cent of learners have completed a bachelor, master or doctoral degree,

                                                                                                                   9
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

and the majority are younger than 34 years of age. Female representation
ranges between 26 and 39 per cent among the courses, which is even lower
than the average on Coursera. A majority of learners are professionals.
Only about one-third of learners are categorized by Coursera as full-time
students (32.7 per cent).
     In terms of learner origin, however, the data of the WASH-MOOC
series fundamentally contradict the Glass et al. description of typical
learners. In all courses, the vast majority of learners are from LMICs. Most
learners are from Asia (36.8 per cent), followed by Latin America (20.6
per cent), Europe (17.3 per cent) and Africa (15.3 per cent). With over
25,000 learners, India is the country with most enrolled learners. At the
course level, the reach per country and world region vary substantially.
The Solid Waste-MOOC features high enrolment among Latin American
learners (26 per cent versus 11–14 per cent in the other courses). The
HWTS-MOOC and FSM-MOOC have above-average learner numbers from
Asia (47 per cent and 45.6 per cent respectively); and the majority of the
learners in the Sanitation-MOOC offered in French are from francophone
Africa (52 per cent).
     The greater representation of learners from LMICs underlines the
attractiveness of the content and format for the primary target group of
the WASH-MOOC series. At the same time, surveys completed by learners
at the end of all four MOOCs(37) revealed that learners from LMICs still        37. In all courses of the WASH-
consider internet access, financial resources and languages to be hurdles.      MOOC series, students were
                                                                                asked to fill in a survey before
Course learners particularly highlight the need to offer improved access        starting and after completing a
for learners without reliable or affordable broadband internet (e.g., by        course. By June 2020, a total of
reducing file sizes, by offering user-friendly download options of the full     4,300 learners had answered
                                                                                the initial survey and 3,143
courses), to issue free certificates at the course level and to make courses    learners had completed the
available in more languages. Learners from LMICs further recommend              final survey.
expanding the content, mainly by adding more case studies and practical
examples from their respective world regions and countries, and increasing
collaboration with local partners (e.g., universities, companies, NGOs,
local authorities) to create contextualized learning offers with credentials.
     In the absence of long-term studies measuring the impact of the
WASH MOOCs, final survey answers from course completers provide
some insights on the extent to which the courses can foster students’
ability to get jobs in the WASH sector and broaden the skills of currently
employed professionals to respond to WASH challenges. Most course
completers stated that they were able to use the gained knowledge in their
profession right away (55.4 per cent) or expected to use it in the next five
years (39.5 per cent).

c. Completion rates – the bane of MOOCs?

Compared to other MOOCs, the WASH-MOOC series has above-average
completion rates. Out of 121,649 enrolled learners, 79,642 (65 per
cent) have started and 14,796 (12.1 per cent) have completed a course
(Figure 2). However, the completion rates have only limited information
value if learners’ intentions are not taken into account. The “easy-
in, easy-out” options of most MOOCs allow learners to enrol without
lengthy application protocols or initial payment, and to drop out with
two mouse-clicks. Low completion rates are, therefore, not a bane, but
a logical consequence of a format that also attracts learners who might

10
D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

                                                                     Figure 2
                                       WASH-MOOC series – cumulative learner numbers per learner
                                                             category

                                     NOTES: Within six years, the series has reached 121,649 enrolled learners.
                                     65 per cent of enrolled learners have started a course, and 12.1 per cent
                                     have completed a course.

                                     SOURCE: Coursera dashboards of the WASH-MOOC series (April 2014–May 2020).

                                   be only interested in specific course offerings (e.g., technical aspects of
                                   treatment methods, case studies).
                                        A progress funnel (Figure 3) provides more detailed information
                                   than the completion rate, which simply divides enrolled learners by
                                   course completers. All courses feature the typical high dropout rate at the
                                   beginning and a relatively flat curve from week 2 onwards. Measuring the
                                   number of active learners per month (Figure 4) offers a complementary
                                   indicator to learner engagement. This figure illustrates that the COVID-19
                                   pandemic has not only led to a massive increase of enrolled learners
                                   (Figure 1), but also caused a steep rise in learner engagement.

                                   d. Digital learning formats beyond MOOCs

                                   According to Torrisi-Steele and Drew, higher education in the 21st
                                   century “faces the challenge of providing cost-effective, high quality learning
                                   experiences appropriate to the needs of an ever-increasing, culturally diverse
                                   student population and to meet the competency demands of a digital,
38. Torrisi-Steele, Geraldine      knowledge driven society”.(38) While MOOCs have proven to be beneficial
and Steve Drew (2013),             for delivering WASH education at scale, they can fall short in providing a
“The literature landscape of
                                   more contextualized learning experience. Blended learning initiatives(39)
blended learning in higher
education: the need for better     and so-called SPOCs (small private online courses) have emerged as more
understanding of academic          targeted formats that allow more collaborative and interactive learning
blended practice”, International   environments. In practice, there is a high synergy potential among these
Journal for Academic
                                   formats.
                                                                                                                  11
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

                                                                               Development Vol 18, No 4,
                                                                               pages 371–383, page 378.
                                                                               39. Blended or hybrid learning
                                                                               combines online and face-to-
                                                                               face learning. Online materials
                                                                               are used to complement
                                                                               in-class learning by offering
                                                                               additional exercises or content.

                                 Figure 3
                 WASH-MOOC series – progress funnel

 NOTES: The progress funnel shows similar retention rates for all courses of
 the WASH-MOOC series. Most learners drop out before starting the course
 and before completing week 1. A majority of learners starting week 2
 complete the full course.

 SOURCE: Coursera dashboards of the WASH-MOOC series (January 2016–May
 2020).

                                 Figure 4
        WASH-MOOC series – learner engagement per month

 NOTES: Learners that have at least completed one course item per month
 are categorized as active learners.

 SOURCE: Coursera dashboards of the WASH-MOOC series (January 2018–May
 2020).

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D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

                            PHOTOS 4A AND 4B
     Elizabeth Oloruntoba of Ibadan University in Nigeria integrates
     MOOC modules into her lecture by jointly watching the videos
                   (4A) followed by a discussion (4B)

    © Ibadan University (2016).

    The following three examples from universities and training centres
in Nigeria, Mozambique and Indonesia illustrate the versatile application
potential of MOOCs as a component of online, onsite and blended
learning formats:

-     The most common approach chosen by partner institutions is the
      integration of selected video modules into an existing onsite lecture.
      Photos 4A and 4B show Elizabeth Oloruntoba using a video module

                                                                                 13
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

     in her “Water Supply and Quality Management” course at Ibadan
     University in Nigeria. After an introduction to the topic, she watches
     the videos together with the learners, followed by a discussion about
     the content. Alternatively, partners apply the “flipped-classroom”
     mode whereby students learn content by watching video modules of
     the WASH-MOOC series outside of the classroom and then come to
     class prepared to engage with the content.
-    An instructive example of a full-fledged programme based on the
     WASH-MOOC series is the ZAMADZI capacity-building initiative in
     Mozambique. Directing the learners to the MOOCs on Coursera was
     not considered a viable option, due to the language barrier and the lack
     of affordable internet. Therefore, the complete series was transferred
     to a locally hosted Moodle platform, translated into Portuguese and
     merged with onsite activities focusing on the contextualization of
     content (e.g., field visits, student presentations, group assignments,
     roleplays). The overall learner feedback has been positive. Remaining
     challenges are the high costs of data bundles, video-based preparation
     for the classes, and the language barrier that continues to exist in
     courses, which are subtitled but not fully delivered in the learners’
     native languages.(40)                                                        40. A blog post written by
                                                                                  the programme manager
-    The course “Kuliah Online Pengelolaan Sampah di Indonesia”                   provides insights into the
     (“Online Lecture on Waste Management in Indonesia”) exemplifies              design and management of
                                                                                  the ZAMADZI capacity-building
     the development of a more contextualized online course based
                                                                                  initiative. Arsénio, André (2019),
     on a MOOC. The course was created jointly by Eawag-Sandec and                “Cooperation with EAWAG in
     the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB), after local stakeholders          the short-course program”,
     expressed a demand for easily accessible knowledge on solid waste            ZAMADZI blog, 30 September,
                                                                                  available at https://zamadzi.
     management issues in Indonesia. The complete Solid Waste-MOOC                net/2019/09/30/cooperation-
     has been subtitled in Bahasa Indonesia, and local experts have               with-eawag-in-the-short-
     provided additional video modules on the specifics of solid waste            course-program.
     management in Indonesia. The contextualized course is hosted by
                                                                                  41. The course is freely
     ITB and offered completely online.(41)                                       available on the ITB-webpage
                                                                                  at https://ftsl.itb.ac.id/link/
                                                                                  kuliah-online-pengelolaan-
                                                                                  sampah-di-indonesia.
V. Discussion

Although MOOCs have not fully lived up to the high initial expectation of
democratizing education, they have enriched the educational landscape
by offering free or affordable education to millions of learners globally.
The continued growth in the number of MOOC learners, courses and
platforms indicates that MOOCs are here to stay.
     This article has critically examined the opportunities and challenges
of MOOCs for WASH practitioners and students based on the case of
the WASH-MOOC series. The series has reached WASH professionals and
students at an unprecedented scale, with a majority of learners coming from
LMICs. The monthly growth rate of around 1,500 new learners in normal
times, and 5,000–6,000 new learners since the outbreak of COVID-19,
indicates a continuous high demand for online courses in the WASH sector.
The analysis of the students’ demographics shows that WASH MOOCs can
reach learners who will play a crucial role in closing the capacity gaps in the
sector – well-educated and young professionals in LMICs.
     With the explicit formulation of a standalone goal on education
(SDG 4: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong

14
D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

learning opportunities for all”) and the integration of numerous education-
related targets within other goals, education is considered a key driver for
the overall achievement of the SDGs by 2030. Can a dedicated MOOC
series make a viable contribution? The transdisciplinary character of the
SDGs is represented in the WASH-MOOC series, which, besides its strong
focus on SDG 6 (“Ensure availability and sustainable management of water
and sanitation for all”), embraces aspects of other goals, such as no poverty
(SDG 1), good health and wellbeing (SDG 3), gender equality (SDG 5), and
sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11). The series can offer learners
new perspectives and knowledge they would otherwise not have access
to. As a case in point, many engineering schools in sub-Saharan Africa
and South Asia continue to teach over-engineered, conventional sewer
systems as the best urban solution for environmental engineering, even
though these systems have failed to reach the vast majority of citizens in
the past decades. The Sanitation-MOOC and the FSM-MOOC presented
in Section IV offer in-depth alternative content for participants to learn
about non-sewered solutions that they would otherwise not have access
to. This leads to the question of whether MOOC learners can convert
the offered learning experiences into practical actions contributing to
the SDGs. Feedback collected from learners at the end of the courses
indicates that a vast majority of course completers are using the gained
knowledge in their profession right away or are expecting to use it in the
next five years. In addition, there is some anecdotal evidence from WASH-
MOOC learners and universities using the courses that the MOOCs are
fostering students’ employability in the WASH sector. However, getting a
better understanding of the extent to which WASH MOOCs are actually
contributing to the SDGs will require further research that entails a
systematic impact assessment.
     With a format designed for delivering education at scale, providing a
contextualized learning experience is only possible to a certain extent. It
is, therefore, important to highlight the suitability of MOOCs to serve as
a starting point for high-quality, cost-effective blended learning formats.
This potential for synergies does not come as a surprise, because the initial
experimentation at Stanford University that continues to shape MOOCs
was strongly driven by the aims of making on-campus education more
engaging and making better use of time by enabling students to learn the
core material online and using class time for discussions or experiential
activities. An alternative digital learning format that addresses some of
the shortcomings of MOOCs are SPOCs, which have emerged as a more
targeted format, encouraging cohort-based experiences with smaller
learner groups and defined start and end dates. Their scaled-down
approach allows for the design of content that is tailored to a usually
more homogeneous cohort (e.g. staff from Tanzanian municipal utilities).
SPOCs offer “face time” between instructors and participants, e.g. in-
person orientation, webinars, Q&As, group work, quizzes, capstone
exercises and a reliable mentoring system – in short, a challenging
learning experience that allows participants to acquire new competencies.
Like MOOCs, SPOCs can be sequenced to allow for on-the-job training,
without learners having to take time off.
     In the coming years, escalating population growth, exploding
demand for education, diminishing technological hurdles (e.g., rapid
spread of smartphones, fast penetration of landline and mobile broadband
internet), and a growing number of universities that are discovering the
                                                                              15
ENVIRONMENT & URBANIZATION

potential of MOOCs as an integral component of their curriculum, are
increasingly turning WASH MOOCs into an important and viable option
for learners in LMICs across the globe. Reaching such a diverse learning
population at scale requires a continuous effort to adapt content and
format.
     Recommendations from course completers in LMICs particularly
point out the importance of improved access for learners without
affordable broadband internet, additional translations, more case studies
from LMICs, and increasing collaborations with partners in LMICs to
offer contextualized learning offers. Providing free credentials and course
validation is frequently requested by learners but remains a thorny subject.
More development work is needed to create internationally recognized
certification standards for verified achievements. Future digital learning
offers will need to address three distinct issues to become a driving force
in WASH education in the next decade: (i) strengthening inclusion and
equity, particularly by improving the current gender imbalance of MOOC
learners; (ii) gaining a better understanding of learners’ needs, intentions
and behaviours, e.g. by using emerging analytical methods based
on artificial intelligence; and (iii) improving learning experiences by
combining MOOCs with more tailor-made online and blended learning
formats for targeted learning cohorts.
     The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the trend towards
digital learning and has forced educational institutions in the WASH
sector to build up or expand their digital learning offer in a very short
period, leading to a wealth of first-hand experiences with challenges and
opportunities related to digital learning. The practical experiences gained
during the pandemic will influence the design of the post-pandemic
educational systems and raise the expectation that an increasing number
of WASH MOOCs, SPOCs and blended learning initiatives produced by
universities in Asia, Latin America and Africa will reduce the capacity gap
in the WASH sector.

Acknowledgements

We thank Christian Riuji Lohri and Abishek Sankara Narayan for their
helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. We would
also like to express our gratitude to Elizabeth Oloruntoba from the
University of Ibadan, Nigeria and André Arsénio from the ZAMADZI-
programme in Mozambique for sharing their insights on usage and
contextualization of the MOOC series. Many thanks to all instructors
of the WASH-MOOC series (Rick Johnston, Sara Marks, Christian
Zurbrügg and Linda Strande) and their teams for their passion for
digital learning, as well as to the colleagues at the Center for Digital
Learning at EPFL for the fruitful collaboration during the production
of the MOOC series.

Funding

The MOOC programme was supported through funding by the Swiss
Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Swiss Federal
Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag).

16
D E L I V ER I NG W A S H E D U C A T I O N A T S C A L E

                                ORCID iD

                                Fabian Suter       https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5494-4558

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