This talk describes the formation of a new genre of MOOC (massive open online course) called a DOCC (distributed, open, collaborative course).  It includes a description of the creation of the first DOCC offered in 2013 by FemTechNet on the topic of “Dialogues on Feminism and Technology.” Future DOCCs include a new one on the broader topic of “Global Media Activism.”

In 2013 Anne Balsamo, with Alex Juhasz, co-founded FemTechNet, an online educational resource created by a collective network of scholars, artists, and activists across North America working at the intersections of technology and feminism; FemTechNet has been described by Inside Higher Ed as “the Feminist Anti-MOOC.” One of the founding members of HASTAC, Balsamo has received grants from Microsoft Research and the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop interactive-media projects, among them an inspiring digital complement to the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Balsamo was Associate Director of the Stanford Humanities Lab and has worked at celebrated Xerox PARC. She is the author of Technologies of the Gendered Body: Reading Cyborg Women (1996) and Designing Culture: The Technological Imagination at Work (2011).