Cyber Safety Awareness Through a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): Community Engagement Knowledge Transfer

The world is becoming increasingly digitised, and information communication technology (ICT) has become integrated in every part of our lives. Constant connectivity (internet access) has provided opportunities that have enriched and changed the way we do business, education environments, socialise and participate in personal activities. An environment that is growing due to constant ICT development is the education space. This impact of ICT on the educational environment made it possible to provide educational opportunities to numerous communities that were previously excluded. This exclusion of educational spaces and lifelong learning opportunities are a result of inadequate funding, transport and time constraints, access to higher education spaces and lack of prior knowledge and skills. This research investigates how electronic learning (e-learning) can be used to facilitate knowledge sharing amongst disadvantage communities. The research explores a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) approach with the aim to enhance knowledge sharing and cultivating an environment for lifelong learning among previous excluded communities. This research uses a case study of a cyber safety awareness community engagements project to determine if a MOOC can be used to provide quality education, knowledge and skills to committees that otherwise had no access to higher educational or further learning spaces. This research covered the design, presentation, and evaluation of a cyber safety awareness MOOC on a 0-rated (free data available) university platform in South Africa. The MOOC was evaluated by means of a pre and post questionnaire to determine its success and the extent of knowledge transfer to community members.