One of the virtues of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is that, because of their scalability, temporal flexibility and digital mediation, they have the potential to increase learner numbers in higher education, boosting their general level of social inclusion. Whether a MOOC actually succeeds in enhancing students’ social inclusion, however, is shaped by two elements of the course: 1) the features of the online interface – the embedded linguistic, pedagogical and interactive features that direct students’ engagement with the course materials, the educator and their peers; and 2) the knowledge content of the course, especially its relevancy for equipping learners to be able to engage meaningfully with the world after completion of the MOOC. With this in mind, this paper focuses on the first element, exploring Turkish students’ experiences of taking a MOOC and their perceptions of how the MOOC interface shaped their sense of social inclusion. Fifteen university-level students registered for a five-week MOOC on how to improve their English language writing skills. They then completed a questionnaire about their views on the learning experience. Nine of the students also kept diaries reflecting on their learning through the MOOC. Findings reveal that these students had a positive view of the MOOC, with different elements of the online interface playing important roles in improving digital, educational and social inclusion. The paper ends by recommending that researchers should further investigate the relationship between social inclusion and MOOCs; that course designers should rethink the role of online interfaces within MOOCS; and that Turkish higher education institutions should develop more MOOCs with locally relevant features embedded within them.

中文翻译：

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在线界面和社会包容性：土耳其的MOOC研究

大规模开放在线课程（MOOC）的优点之一是，由于它们的可扩展性，时间灵活性和数字中介，它们有潜力增加高等教育中的学习者数量，从而提高其社会包容的总体水平。然而，MOOC是否真正成功地增强了学生的社会包容性，取决于该课程的两个要素：1）在线界面的功能–嵌入式的语言，教学和交互功能，指导学生对课程材料的参与，教育者及其同伴；2）课程的知识内容，特别是与学习者在MOOC完成后能够与世界进行有意义的互动有关的意义。考虑到这一点，本文重点讨论第一个元素，探索土耳其学生参加MOOC的经历以及他们对MOOC界面如何塑造他们的社会包容感的看法。15名大学水平的学生报名参加了为期五周的MOOC，旨在提高他们的英语写作技能。然后，他们完成了一份关于他们对学习经历的看法的调查表。9名学生还记着日记，以反映他们通过MOOC的学习情况。调查结果表明，这些学生对MOOC持积极态度，在线界面的不同元素在改善数字，教育和社会包容性方面发挥着重要作用。最后，建议研究人员应进一步研究社会包容与MOOC之间的关系；课程设计者应重新考虑在线界面在MOOCS中的作用；