Life in the MOOC [edited {twice}]

The FutureLearn / Univ of Exeter course I'm studying is apparently an example of a MOOC. I'd never heard this term before, but I noticed one or two participants using it on the boards. I had heard of MOOs (though I couldn't remember what that stood for) and assumed they were related. This week I discovered what a MOOC really is: Massive Open Online Course.  No etymological relation at all to MOO, which is a MUD Object Oriented. MUD, for those who don't know, is a Multi-User Dungeon (from the early online dungeons-and-dragons games).  Object-Oriented from the way the software is designed and coded. Hmm. I used to 'do' OO for a living, and now I have to google (or ask a former colleague) just to find out what the acronyms mean. At least IT has moved on since my days. It used to be full of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) but MOOC is a FLA (Four Letter Acronym). So we're not stuck in a self-referential infinite loop any more...

One of the things I find a little odd about the MOOC approach to learning is the dislocation of time, and the oddly jerky way that many interactions between students occur. We're all working through the material at our own pace, and discussing it with other participants as we go, occasionally with staff mentors too (I should maybe note that our mentors are actually Exeter Uni students, and the 'real' staff make little or no appearance - how could they, with this number of online participants on top of all their normal university duties?).  I've spent part of today checking notifications and reading and replying to other peoples' posts. Checking notifications can involve jumping randomly back and forth through the discussions. When you follow a notification, it leads you to a point somewhere in, usually, the middle of a discussion. You have to read back a bit to make sense, sometimes a number of posts, before you can make a sensible reply. If you then start reading ahead, you can find other posts that prompt a reply. That in turn leads to further notifications if others respond to your new post. This can become quite confusing, especially when there is a real buzz, a feeling of energy and vigorous debate on the board.

My peer group, the people I know best on the course, the ones I communicate with the most, appear to be moving at roughly the same pace through the material as me. At least, I imagine this but couldn't prove it. I've chosen to stay within the implied calendar weeks of the course, partly because I think most others will too. Thus I will have fellow travellers to discuss the journey with. But, checking ahead, I see all the content is available right now, so you could finish the course in one week if you wanted. Though you'de be quite lonely on the later material, since no-one else would be there on the boards with you. Still, I notice that one student has already commented on a video scheduled for week 3.

I also notice that people I recall from the welcome discussion, maybe quite a few, don't seem to feature in the week 1 discussion boards at all. Or if they do, they're not very prominent. Three guesses for why:-

1. Some are shy in this environment. Maybe made worse by how busy and active my peer group is. We seem to be mainly retired or highly experienced professionals from a range of disciplines. And a leavening of younger but still well-educated ones. Together, we're articulate, opinionated, disputative, and collectively we are widely read and very well experienced. A few of my peer group openly acknowledge their lack of experience and confidence in science. But they are still mostly retired professionals, confident enough to expose their lack of knowledge and take part in debate. Perhaps the storm of our posts has intimidated some less confident participants into silence? 
2. Some may not be confident of their English language. I recall some in the welcome discussion for whom English was clearly not their first language. Maybe we, the rowdy over-confident anglophones, have had a similar inhibiting effect on them? In this case, amplified not by lack of experience or qualifications (some were very well qualified), but simply confidence in English language skills?
3. Slower pace of travel - maybe for reasons 1 and 2 above, or for lots of other reasons: demands of work or family or other outside pressures. Perhaps just prefer to work at a different pace?

Reason 3 was the last to occur to me, but it should have been the first. It may be the most likely. Am I so wrapped up in the discussions I'm having, I just don't notice how few people are taking part? If it is reason 1 or 2, how would you address this?  Perhaps mentors or tutors could intervene. Can they identify people with low participation levels and provide direct support? As far as I can tell, we participants can't do that, even if we wanted to and had time. I can't find a way to list all participants. Nor can I find a way to trace another's posts, even if I know their name, except by hunting through the boards or waiting for a notification they've contacted me. But I know that I was really looking forward to the contributions of some Asian and African participants I noticed on the welcome discussion. From their brief introductory pieces, they seemed to have really interesting experiences  to relate. Among them, were people who live in the some of the most threatened places on the planet. Where are they now? We miss their participation...

[Added later...] Yup, reason 3 prevails. I've just been looking back over the earlier tasks, and some people are just now posting comments for the first time. Ah well, there are so many of us on this course, it was always going to be impossible to interact with everyone and read everything. But it worries me a bit that different groups will have very different experiences of the course. Those moving through at the breaking crest of the wave will always be breaking new ground on the discussion boards. Those following will find more content already posted when they reach a given task. But those at the front are less likely to get the benefit of comments posted after they have moved through a task and gone on to the next.  So the groups will tend to diverge. The following group risk information overload. The leading group lacks input from those who think longer before posting (instead of shooting from the hip and jumping into debate at the first sign of disagreement). Does this matter? I'm not sure. Could it be fixed? Possibly yes. The course team could release the tasks one at a time on a schedule, instead of releasing all 4 weeks-worth of tasks at once. But that might lead to other problems; it would certainly reduce our flexibility to proceed at our own pace. Perhaps best left as it is.