We started with a goal of transforming the curriculum for a MOOC, we ended up transforming ourselves

This presentation aligns with the theme ‘Facilitating Curriculum Transformation’: it describes the process taken, and experiences of the multidisciplinary team involved in converting a didactic text-heavy online unit into a unit wholly offered via a MOOC platform. Increasingly universities are being asked to re-think their traditional model of delivery, to be more effective and efficient in order to ensure sustainability (OCED, 2014). In a world first, our institution offered a small number of postgraduate degrees via a MOOC platform, the first two-weeks being offered via a free 'taster'. Our team, a mixture of academic staff (learning designers) and professional staff (video production, graphic design and project support) came together with educators in the course team (the content experts) to make this happen. The MOOC platform utilises a social learning pedagogy with the delivery of content interwoven with case studies in a digital storytelling model–this required a complete shift in mindset of the course team, who had historically delivered content in a text-heavy online format. In order to transform the curriculum to the new platform, and create the premium quality digital stories that complemented, and importantly applied theory to practice, the course team needed to 'open up' their curriculum to our team. This was the first of a number of transformative experiences, where traditional ways of working, preconceived notions of learning in higher education, and boundaries between roles were dissolved as we found ourselves working within a third space environment. The third space is a territory situated between academic and professional domains, where traditional professional identities are blended and more agile ways of working emerge to undertake projects often conducted outside existing hierarchical structures and processes (Whitchurch, 2008). Academics working independently to develop content were transformed into academics who became part of a high quality production process. Content, although a core component of the curriculum became only one part of the overall learning experience. The seemingly impossible timelines and multiple unknowns of the project required the team to re-calibrate their expectations of process and policy, and to adjust to a workplace where agility, uncertainty and collegiality were paramount. This presentation explores how these experiences built capacity across the team, and argues that effective online learning in higher education requires a new way of working where there is openness, agility, permeable role boundaries, and authentic collaboration between content experts, learning designers and experts in digital production within the third space.