Harvard University and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology released data last month on the first 16 massive open
online courses (MOOCs) offered by their edX partnership. It turns out that while
millions may register, far fewer actually complete the class and most people taking
MOOCs already have a college degree.
While that comes as no surprise, the report
may provide developers with valuable information for the future.
“There was a lot we didn’t know, especially
about who took different types of MOOCs and how much of the course content they
viewed,” wrote Jonah Newman and Soo Oh in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
“This information may be valuable to those looking to design and lead
successful MOOCs.”
For instance, while 57% of students on
campus are female, 76% of students taking MOOCs are male. The median age of the
participants is 24, with a third coming from North America. More than 20% of
the students come from South Asia and students from that part of the world. They are
most likely taking engineering and computer science courses, while Africans
enroll in social science courses at nearly twice the rate of any other
offering.
Students with a doctorate viewed the most
course materials and students who took more than one MOOC were the most engaged
in the course material, unless they took more than five classes, which is when
engagement fell off.
Perhaps the most troubling trend is that
nearly half of all registered students never look at any content associated
with the class.
