Doing MOOCs in Dili: Studying online learner behaviour in the Global South Monty King [0000-0003-3279-8857] Montgomery.king@research.uwa.edu.au/ The University of Western Australia and FutureLearn Abstract This work in progress paper is part of an ethnographic action research project investigating the potential for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to provide learning opportunities to students in Dili, Timor-Leste. A systematic review of academic literature on MOOCs and Open Educational Resources (OER) in the Global South 1 identified key emergent themes: The infrastructural barriers to Internet access; the literacies required to participate in online learning; the new, often unfamiliar pedagogical approaches; and the context of content. This paper examines these themes in Dili as they play out in practice. A fifth theme in the literature is also discussed; the imbalance of knowledge flow from global North to South, leading to accusations of academic neocolonialism. This paper proposes that qualitative learner behaviour research is crucial to understanding how online learners in places like Dili negotiate the conditions which constrain and enable learning in MOOCs, and concludes that MOOC platforms need to acknowledge postcolonial critiques and give greater voice to academics in the Global South. Keywords. MOOCs for development, Ethnography, User behaviour studies, 1 Introduction Since MOOCs first appeared in the higher education landscape, they have been touted as a means of providing quality education at scale to a global audience, including learners in the Global South, broadly defined as ‘regions outside Europe and North America that are mostly (though not all) low-income and often politically or culturally marginalized’ 2. Early claims of MOOCs being a panacea to global educational inequalities appear premature and naïve. A recent systematic review of the literature on MOOCs and Open Educational Resources in the Global South3 revealed five emergent themes: The infrastructural barriers to Internet access; the literacies required to participate in online learning; the new, often unfamiliar pedagogical approaches adopted; the context of content; and the imbalance of knowledge flow from the global North to the South. This paper 1. King M, Pegrum M, Forsey M (2018) MOOCs and OER in the Global South: Problems and potential. Int Rev Op Dist Learning https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i5.3742 2. Dados, N Connell R (2012) The Global South. Contexts doi: 10.1177/1536504212436479 3. King et al. op. cit. Proceedings of EMOOCs 2019: Work in Progress Papers of the Research, Experience and Business Tracks 54