The Designed Environment
The designed learning environment included three main interconnected components, each of which had varied levels of emphasis on collaborative discourse and on openness.
Open course portal
To replace an LMS' role in hosting course materials, the designer used a tool, Bookdown, for open textbook authoring and hosting. This tool---based on R (an open-source statistical programming language) and Markdown (a markup language)---enabled authoring and quick publishing of course content. Similar to typical usage of an LMS for hosting course content, the designer provided on the Bookdown site links to a course textbook, links to other chosen web materials (e.g., journal articles), weekly course videos made by the instructor, and description of weekly learning activities (Goal 1; see Figure \ref{216900}). By hosting it as an open textbook, learners not formally enrolled could also follow this course, enabling two different pathways of course participation (Goal 4), akin to a "dual-layer" participation approach in MOOC design \cite{Rose2015-ub}.