Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Who can register for mooc.house?

There are no access restrictions. Anyone can register independent of education level, grade average, age, nationality or company affiliation.

Does the participation in mooc.house courses cost any money?

No, the courses are offered entirely for free.

In what languages are the mooc.house courses offered?

Courses are either offered in German or in English. You will find the appropriate information on the introductory pages of a course. For example, the course "In-Memory Data Management" conducted by Prof. Hasso Plattner is in English and the course "Internetworking mit TCP/IP" conducted by Prof. Christoph Meinel is held in German.

How is an mooc.house course structured? What is the organizational procedure? When is the course material available? How much time do I have to work through it? How long can I study or work on the course material, self-tests and homework?

The complete course, including the final exam, takes seven weeks. The entire course material for one week - learning videos, accompanying material, self-tests and homework - is made available every Monday at mooc.house. According to your own time schedule, you will then be able to work through the material within the week, repeating it as often as you like. During the week lively discussions will be taking place in discussion forums between the course participants and instructors about the material covered. Further videos will then be available throughout the week in which the instructors and their colleagues address the questions most often posed in the discussion forums.

The homework for a week will also be available on Mondays. It must be completed and turned in by Monday of the following week.

How much time do I need to invest per week? How much work is involved?

The amount of work involved depends on one's prior knowledge and is estimated at 5-10 hours per week. This involves working with the videos and the course material provided, checking one's understanding of the curriculum with a self-test, completing the homework and actively participating in the discussion forums.

Is it possible to get a record of achievement at mooc.house?

Yes, after successful completion of an mooc.house course you can receive a graded record of achievement from the Hasso Plattner Institute. Successful participation means that you earn at least 50% of the sum of maximum possible points for homework and final exam. The final exam will weigh 50%. The record of achievement will be issued in the name you used to register at mooc.house.

We will be glad to issue a confirmation of participation in a course to those who have completed at least 50% of the course material.

Can I discontinue my participation in an mooc.house course whenever I want?

Yes, discontinuation of a course is possible at any time. You can unsubscribe from a course by using on the course detail page the button "En-unroll". But this is not essential.

Can I still register at mooc.house if a course has already started?

As a rule, course registration should take place before a course has begun - or least in the first week of the course. Starting a course late means it becomes increasingly difficult to earn the number of points necessary for a graded record of achievement. The requirements to obtain a confirmation of participation can also no longer be fulfilled if a course is first joined when it is nearing its end. You can, however, sign up for a course at any time and receive access to all material. After a course is over it is no longer possible to obtain a record of achievement for completion of the relevant material.

What happens to the mooc.house course material after the course is over?

After the end of a course, the course contents remain available on the network. It's only the record of achievement that can no longer be earned.

I would like to register for other mooc.house courses. How can I do that?

If you forgot to sign up for a course when you registered, that's not a problem. Just login to mooc.house and follow the Quick Guide .

I have problems with the registration or activation of my mooc.house account. Who can help me?

To finish your registration on mooc.house, you will receive an e-mail in which you will be prompted to confirm that you are the owner of the email address. Once you receive this email, please click on the link in this email to verify your email address.

If you don't receive a confirmation email, please check your spam folder. You can request a new confirmation E-mail logging in with your access data previously selected. As long as your account is not confirmed, a message appears with a link to request a new confirmation email.

If your account is already confirmed but you can not log in, please make sure you have JavaScript enabled and accept cookies from our site. If it still does not work, please use the "Reset Password" function in the log in form.

Please click on the Helpdesk button on the right hand side of your browser window and describe your problem. We will be glad to assist you.

I can't participate in the whole course because I'm on vacation. Can I still earn a record of achievement?

Unfortunately, we can't extend the deadlines for homework completion. If you're not able to turn in the homework within the course week, you will need to earn more points in the following weeks to reach the total number of points necessary for a successful course outcome.

I just want to get familiar with some of the material, but not earn a record of achievement. Is this allowed?

You can participate in the areas of the course based on your own interests and possibilities. There is no obligation to complete the homework and earn a record of achievement. But, we do welcome every active contribution to the discussion forums.

Where can I find the course materials?

From the course list or your dashboard you reach the individual courses. There you will find the materials in the tab "Course Content". The contents are based as follows:

  • On the left side is the course navigation - with this you can navigate through the course of weeks. Because the weeks of the course will be released on mooc.house only gradually, all weeks aren't always active.
  • In the course navigation you can find in the active week (week 1 in the graph) also always some links for quick access
  • Above the actual learning content is the current weekly navigation, a series of symbols that indicate the type of learning units.
  • The active learning unit is marked by a red bar above the icon.
  • Already visited learning units have a light gray background and stand out from the non-visited from.
  • The title of a learning unit appears as a tooltip above the icon by remaining with the mouse over it.

Please explain self tests and homework. What is the difference between these two?

  • Self tests are short multiple-choice quizzes which are directly linked to a video or a text. The purpose of a self test is to self-control the understanding of the just required knowledge. The self-tests can be repeated as often as desired and they do not count for the Record of Achievement.
  • Homework, in contrary, have to be finished by a certain fixed (usually weekly) deadline and are precondition for receiving a Record of Achievement.
  • Depending on a certain course structure, additional assignments can be part of a course week. These serve, for example, as practical and interactive tasks in which course participants can directly apply their required knowledge. These could be for example coding assignments which are embedded on openHPI via external tool. Points for the Record of Achievements can be collected as well by successfully finishing these assignments.

Please find additional explanations about offered homework, assignments, their deadline and significance for the Record of Achievement on the respective course pages.

In many courses we offer bonus exercises in which you can obtain additional points. In this way you have the possibility to compensate a missed homework or missing points in the final exam. Even if you have answered all exercises fully correctly, it's worth having a look at the bonus exercises. They often contain interesting practical exercises.

If some points are still missing you can close this gap by taking the bonus exercise.

You can achieve a maximum of 100 percent of points in a course.
If you have collected more than 100 percent (bonus points included), the surplus points are cut.

How are multiple choice and multiple answer questions graded?

Exercises and examinations consist of multiple-choice tasks (with exactly one correct answer) and multiple-answer tasks (with one or more correct solutions). For multiple-choice questions you can receive either full points if you answered correctly or none if you did not. For multiple-answer questions the case is a little more complicated. The number of achievable points is divided by the number of correct answers. The result of this division forms the base value. For each correct answer this base value is added to the sum of points that you’ll receive for this question. For each incorrect answer, the base value is subtracted from your result. If the total result is negative, you’ll receive 0 points.
Here’s a short example: a total of 3 points is assigned to a question. Three out of five answers are correct. The participant has marked two correct and one false answers. For each of the correct answers s/he receives one point (3 divided by 3), for the false answer one point is subtracted. The participant, therefore, receives only one point for the question.

I have forgotten my password. How can I reset it?

In the login-form you will find on the bottom the password entry field as a small link. This will take you to another form where you must enter the email address that you used for your registration at mooc.house.

After submitting the form, you will receive an e-mail address. This mail contains a link that takes you to the actual password reset. After clicking the link you have to enter your new password and confirm it. Now you can log in !

I would like to build my own MOOC. Where do I find guidelines on the steps I should take?

If you want to create your own MOOC, you will find practical advice in the MOOC BOOK. This is an open source collection of guidelines for different user groups (universities, business, individuals), created within the framework of the EU project BizMOOC. You can find it at: http://bizmooc.eu/mooc-manual/. We welcome your comments.

What happens to my personal data?

Hasso Plattner Institute is subject to the Federal Data Protection Act, as the servers with the user data are situated in Germany. For platform improvement and research reasons only, expressly pseudonymized data is used. Further information on data protection and privacy on mooc.house can be found here.

How can I contact the mooc.house-Team?

If you didn't find any answers to your questions on our website and in the FAQs please contact us via the green Helpdesk button on the right side of your screen.

This page was last changed at Thu, 07 Oct 2021 13:56:38 +0000.