Coursera is quickly becoming the greatest source of buzz amid the growing roar of excitement over massive open online classes. Higher education institutions across the world are scrambling to get involved in one of the most promising prospects for the future of online pedagogy, a race that truly took off in 2012.
Launched in 2011, Coursera now boasts big numbers: over 3 million users from around the world, and courses for free from 62 leading colleges and universities.
The company held a conference in April at the University of Pennsylvania, which more than 400 representatives from its partner universities attended. According to a report from The Washington Post, the conference struck an optimistic tone, with attendees impressed by the global reach of their courses and some suggestions that it could be improving teaching on campuses.
Of course, MOOCs are still in a nascent stage, and for every breakthrough being discovered through these new courses, there are several accompanying questions about regulation, accreditation and efficacy.
Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, told the Washington Post that there is still "profound skepticism┬"" among many in academia about MOOCS, and cautioned against over-hyping the emerging field. But the council has recommended a number of Coursera courses as credit-worthy, which speaks to a broader faith in the company's credibility and effectiveness.
Money, money, money
As with everything that promises free information online, the fundamental question that distributors must face is where their revenue will come from. This applies to for-profits like Coursera as much as non-profit MOOC providers like edX.
At least one experiment in revenue generation has begun at Coursera. According to Inside Higher Ed, the company made $220,000 in the first quarter after it began charging for verified completion certificates. The program, called "Signature Track",┬" offers a more official indication of completion for students pay a fee from $30 to $100 to confirm their identity. Users who wish to be verified submit photo ID and are tracked based on a "unique typing pattern".┬" Coursera suggests that their Signature Track certificates can be characterized as "professional development"┬" or "additional coursework"┬" on the resumes of its students.
Free yet elitist
An irony of the advent of MOOC providers is that its egalitarian promise of providing free education to students hinges on an elitist relationship with the higher education sector.
Coursera has recently gotten attention for the language it uses in its contracts with partner universities that indicate that it "only┬"" offers courses from elite universities and college. Inside Higher Ed obtained one of its contracts that stated that it will only provide classes from the members of the Association of American Universities or "top five"┬" universities in countries outside of North America -- unless its advisory board agrees to waive the requirement.
"Given the AAU's research university orientation, most liberal arts colleges, community colleges and regional public universities could never join",┬" notes Inside Higher Ed.
A Moody's analysis predicts that MOOCs place "new competitive pressure on for-profit, and some not-for-profit, universities that fail to align with emerging high-reputation networks or find a viable independent niche",┬" and that regional colleges and universities in particular face "significant risks".┬"
Combined with the report's anticipation of the "heightened global brand recognition"┬" of the earlier members of the major MOOC providers, it is not difficult to perceive how this could potentially further stratify the higher education world, with elite schools gaining an even bigger name, and smaller ones being shut out altogether.
Inside Higher Ed reports that most of the scores of universities that have sought to partner with Coursera (and edX) have been denied.
Atrocious attrition
Alongside its extraordinary registration numbers, Coursera has extraordinary attrition rates. According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, only 280,000 certificates of completion have been awarded after millions of students have registered since 2011. This is par for the course in the world of MOOCs, whose general completion rate is estimated by many to be around 10 percent.
At Coursera's April conference, there was discussion over the small but usable data sets emerging from MOOC participation that suggested that incomplete courses are not to be understood as they are conventional educational settings. The date doesn't reflect that people register for courses with different intentions.
"[Students'] intent is to explore, find out something about the content, and move on to something else",┬" said Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera, told the Chronicle.
In fact, completion rates spike as soon as a student indicates plans to do work or formally complete a course: for students who submit the first assignment, completion rate goes up to 45 percent; for students who use the Signature Track, pass rates are around 70 percent.
By: AACRAO Connect