JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

At the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Health Emergencies Learning and Capacity Development Unit, together with WHO’s health technical lead on coronaviruses, developed a massive open online course (MOOC) within just three weeks as part of the global response to the emergency. The introductory COVID‑19 course was launched on 26 January 2020 on the health emergencies learning platform OpenWHO.org.

Objective:

This article investigates geographic reach of different language courses accessed by a global audience seeking information on COVID-19. Users’ professional identities and background are explored to inform course owners on the use case. The course was developed and delivered via the open access learning platform OpenWHO.org. The self-paced resources available in a total of 13 languages were produced between 26 January and 25 March 2020.

Methods:

Methods:

Data was collected from the online courses’ statistical data and metrics reporting system on the OpenWHO platform. User patterns and locations were analysed based on Google Analytics and the platform's own statistics capabilities, with data sets overlaid. This analysis was conducted based on user location, with the data disaggregated according to the six WHO regions, their top 10 countries and the proportion of use for each language version. Data includes affiliation, gender, age and other parameters for approximately 30% of users who indicated their background.

Results:

As of 25 March 2020, the introductory COVID-19 course totals 232 890 enrolments across all languages. The Spanish language course comprises more than half (51%) of all course enrolments, while the English language course comprises 37% of enrolments. WHO’s Region of the Americas accounts for most of the course enrolments, with more than 72% across all languages. Other regions are more evenly distributed with less than 10% each. 32.4% of users specified professional affiliation by choosing from the 12 most common backgrounds in OpenWHO’s user profiles. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, users were spread over the 11 distinct affiliations with small fractions of users identifying themselves as “Other”. With the COVID-19 introductory course, the largest number of users selected “Other” (31.7%) suggesting a large non-health professional and academic user load. The top 10 countries of users across all languages are Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

Conclusions:

The online course has addressed a global learning need by providing WHO technical guidance packaged in simple formats for access and use. The learning material development was expedited to meet the onset of the epidemic. Initial data suggests that the various language versions of the course, in particular Spanish, have reached new user groups, fulfilling the platform’s aim of providing learning everywhere to anyone interested. User surveys will be carried out to measure real impact.