A study of massive open online courses (MOOCs) by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University researchers
found registration continues to grow. The survey reported that new registrations
for MOOCs average more than 1,500 people each day, while the median number of
active participants for each course is nearly 8,000.
HarvardX and MITx: Four Years of Open Online Courses noted that 2.4 million unique users participated in one or more MOOCs offered
by the two institutions and nearly 250,000 learner certificates were issued
over the last four years. It also found that the average number of students
enrolled into computer sciences courses is more than 21,000, compared to just
over 7,900 for other courses, according to a report in Campus Technology.
At the same time, the study reported a significant drop
in MOOC enrollment in 2016. MIT and Harvard University each had about 800,000
participants enrolled in MOOCs in 2015, but last year those numbers fell to
670,000 for MIT courses and 540,000 for HarvardX offerings.
The number of people earning certification also fell to
its lowest point in the four years of the study, although the total number of
certificates awarded in 2016 was higher than the number presented in the first
year of the research. Researchers are concerned that the drop in participation
was caused by the decision to not provide free certification for the courses.
“The typical course is smaller than it used to be, but
this decrease is also steady and related to the proliferation of courses with
more specialized content and smaller audiences,” Andrew Ho, a Harvard
researcher who co-authored the study, told TechCrunch.
“The MOOC audience continues to grow, but the number of MOOCs is growing
faster. An analogy is television viewership numbers, and now we have more
‘channels’ than ever. The question now is how can audiences find the best
course for them and on what merits.”
