Online Universities? I am a big fan, but let’s be sober about the stats…
I am a big supporter of ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ (MOOCs).
Stanford University claimed that one MOOC had 160,000 people ‘register’ as students.
But let’s take a sober look at what ‘registration’ as a MOOC ‘student’ really means.
It does not mean filling in an application form, being interviewed, turning up on campus, and then getting in line/queuing to sign up.
It just takes one click on a MOOC website, such as the leading MOOC provider ‘Coursera’.
These stats from one online course show that of the 16,000 people who expressed an interest by ‘enrolling’, only 12% actually started the course, and of those only 13% completed it. More worryingly for Coursera’s business model, only ½% (89 people) gave over $50 for a ‘verified certificate’ (that’s less than $5,000 income for a course that cost $50,000 to create):
| Coursera Exploring Quantum Physics stats 2014 | ||
| Number of enrolled students | 16,318 | |
| Number of different countries represented by enrolled students | 152 | |
| Number of students graded (which is the number of those who submitted any of the homework or exams) | 2,090 | 12.8% |
| Number of students who completed the course | 272 | 1.7% |
| Number of students who completed the course, with distinction | 65 | 0.4% |
| Number of students on Signature Track | 89 | 0.5% |
