Content search “Ethics software” on MOOCs, esp. edX & Coursera

This work takes on two research questions: · Research question 1 (RQ1): What are common structures of curricula that integrate software-related topics and ethics? · Research question 2 (RQ2): What are common topics in the curricula? I analyzed six well-known platforms for MOOCs (edX, Coursera, FutureLearn, Khan Academy, Udacity, and Udemy). All of those platforms offer a search function. The first search term was “ethics software”. I used a deliberately wide search term in order to find a wide array of courses. It is unclear how the search functions work (e.g., usage of which properties of a course; if the two words are connected by an AND- or an OR-conjunction) and they work probably differently across the platforms: · Udemy lists 3,998 courses on this search term. The search term was therefore restricted to “ethics” and filtered by pre-defined keywords “IT security” and “Artificial Intelligence”. · Coursera lists 49 results. · Khan Academy lists 19 items, but not one of them is course. · EdX delivers 10 items. · Future Learn delivers eight results. · Udacity delivers one result. Although I collected data from six MOOC platforms, this sampling covers only two platforms, namely edX and Coursera.

本研究围绕两项研究问题展开：· 研究问题1（RQ1）：融合软件相关主题与伦理内容的课程，其常见结构为何？· 研究问题2（RQ2）：该类课程中的常见主题有哪些？本研究选取了六家知名大规模开放在线课程（Massive Open Online Courses，MOOCs）平台，分别为edX、Coursera、FutureLearn、Khan Academy、Udacity及Udemy。上述平台均配备课程搜索功能。首次使用的搜索词为"伦理与软件（ethics software）"，为检索到尽可能多样的课程，本次刻意选用了覆盖范围较广的搜索词。目前尚不清楚各平台搜索功能的具体运行逻辑，例如其依据课程的哪些属性进行检索，以及两个关键词间采用逻辑与还是逻辑或的连接方式，且不同平台的搜索机制大概率存在差异：Udemy平台针对该初始搜索词共返回3998门课程，因此后续将搜索词限定为"伦理（ethics）"，并通过预定义关键词"信息安全（IT security）"与"人工智能（Artificial Intelligence）"进行筛选；Coursera平台共返回49条结果；Khan Academy平台共返回19条条目，但无一为正式课程；edX平台共返回10条条目；FutureLearn平台共返回8条结果；Udacity平台仅返回1条结果。尽管本研究从六家MOOC平台获取了数据，但本次采样实际仅覆盖edX与Coursera两家平台。