‘Not just men in grey suits’: an Accounting, Finance and Business Massive Open Online Course

In 2014, ICAEW asked the University of Leeds (UoL) to co-develop an accounting and finance massive open online course (MOOC), ‘The Importance of Money in Business’. The target audience was pre-university and undergraduate students. This article explains the development process, structure and pedagogies, and analyses learner characteristics, behaviour and feedback using a range of data. It builds on prior literature and a research programme at UoL (Elston and Morris, 2015; Morris, Hotchkiss & Swinnerton, 2015; Swinnerton, Hotchkiss, Morris & Pickering, 2017a; Swinnerton, Hotchkiss & Morris, 2017b), which has developed and delivered more than 30 FutureLearn MOOCs across a range of subjects. The development process took 15 months to develop a four week course, and included a range of resources and activities including animated video, interactive exercises and quizzes. Over 18,000 people enrolled on two runs of the course. This article contributes to the literature by providing insights into the development and delivery of the course, its learners, their preferences and behaviours while taking the course, which will assist others embarking on MOOC or online learning development.