Science Communication MOOC
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Science Communication MOOC

While at the Technion (2021–2022), I co-developed an undergraduate-level online learning environment about Science Communication.

This Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) was designed to cater to:

(1) science & technology researchers and researchers-in-training;

(2) undergraduate students in STEM subjects and pre-service teachers; and

(3) experts in any technical domain.

My colleagues and I sought to help learners to communicate about their fields of expertise directly with decision-makers and diverse publics, or through media professionals and other intermediaries.

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Sounds interesting. Where can I find it? Hebrew: The Hebrew edition (תקשורת המדע) is freely available on Israel’s national online learning platform, Campus IL; English: IsraelX, Technion: Science Communication is freely available on EdX.

My Contributions

  • Co-Developing the Learning Environment
    • I co-developed most of the materials and activities that accompanied the videos in the learning environment (55,000 words in total, accompanying over 20 hours of video. It’s about as long as a 200-page book).
    • These materials and activities were originally developed in Hebrew, with an Israeli audience in mind.
    • My responsibilities included: - Locating and adapting scholarly texts and other relevant resources; and - Co-designing activities and writing informational texts according to instructional design principles.
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  • Translation and Internationalization
  • After the Hebrew version was completed, we set out to make the entire learning environment available in English for an international audience.

    To that end, I procured the services of two freelance translators, reviewed their deliverables, and provided extensive feedback.

  • Operations
  • Throughout the process, I planned and coordinated work with various stakeholders, including several service providers: - an eLearning developer; - a subtitling company; and - a copy editor (for the Hebrew texts). I reviewed all of these contractors’ deliverables and provided them with feedback in this case as well.

    Fun fact: Faced with the challenge of organizing hundreds of subtitle files that were sent to me piecemeal as e-mail attachments, I used Make.com and Airtable to organize everything semi-automatically. What a ride.

Learner Testimonial

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"This is the most well-thought-out and interactive course I’ve ever seen.

I had never imagined I’d be learning this way here at the Technion. […] I recommended the course to a mathematician friend, who had told me that he’d been having a hard time explaining his work to non-mathematicians.

We were able to come up with a more user-friendly way to talk about his research topic.”

— Guy S., undergraduate engineering student (January 2024)

Funding

This project was supported by grants from:

  • the Israeli Council for Higher Education,
  • the Ministry of Education, and
  • the Digital Israel Bureau at the National Digital Agency.
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