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List of the Most Popular MOOCs

200 points by Schiphol 11y ago

Pamar 11y ago
Interesting but... I enrolled and completed a couple of the courses listed there. I'd be interested in seeing for each what percentage of enrolled students actually completed the whole course. Anecdotally the numbers are really really low (as in "around 5%").
- Schiphol 11y ago
  5% sounds pretty high to me, considering how low (nonexistent, really) the entry barrier is. Where does that figure come from, if I may ask?
  - Pamar 11y ago
    I think I took it from an article online, and it matches my own experience (when you actually finish one of these there is often, but not necessarily always, a message from the course manager with some statistics about how many people turned in the final assignment or are anyway eligible for the certificate). EDIT: Found a couple of articles: http://er.educause.edu/articles/2014/12/mooc-completion-and-retention-in-the-context-of-student-intent http://er.educause.edu/articles/2014/12/mooc-completion-and-... http://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/6/retention-and-intention-in-massive-open-online-courses-in-depth http://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/6/retention-and-intenti...
    - Schiphol 11y ago
      Thanks for this. Incidentally, the second paper you link to is co-auhored, among others, by Daphne Koller, who teaches [this great course on probabilistic graphical models](https://www.coursera.org/course/pgm https://www.coursera.org/course/pgm) and Andrew Ng, who teaches [the best-known intro MOOC in machine learning](https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning/home/welcome https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning/home/welcome).
  - roymurdock 11y ago
    Low barriers to entry would bump the completion rate down, as people are less invested in finishing the course. That's one of the reasons that college completion rates are usually >90%.
- dagw 11y ago
  I'm a huge MOOC fan, but after completing a couple of the very early Stanford ones I haven't completed any. Quite frankly I don't see completing a MOOC as the best use of time. I use MOOCs to either pick up new skills I need for work, brush up on stuff I haven't looked at since University or as 'entertainment', basically learning interesting stuff purely for fun. For non of these things actually completing the course to their satisfaction adds anything to their value. I wish people would stop looking so much at completion scores and not judge the concept as a failure just because they are so low.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    Maybe at one point, considering our era, people reach full independence and can pick a book and a problem, with an ad-hoc study group and/or co-working space and just do it.
  - devit 11y ago
    Yeah, not sure why completion matters. All that matters is whether the user found some useful information in it, and just fully watching one video lecture should be enough for that metric.
    - Pamar 11y ago
      Well, in a couple of cases (here is my current list of MOOCs I took part in, if anyone cares: http://pa-mar.net/Main/Study/Onlinecourses.html http://pa-mar.net/Main/Study/Onlinecourses.html) in order to get completion you had to submit a end-of-course project which was very interesting in itself, and you also learned a lot because in order to get it "graded" you had to grade at least 5 other projects randomly selected among the other participants. So you either saw different approaches to the same problem (e.g. Data Analysis) or everyone discussing a different problem (An Introduction to Operations Management). I am sure that I got a lot (in terms of learning) from that part of the course. If everyone just picks and chooses some papers/videos and drops out before the end you don't get anyone to grade your work and you have no other work to grade (and possibly learn from).
  - VLM 11y ago
- frigg 11y ago
  I did follow a few courses on coursera and I remember the professor saying that the number of students who successfully completed the first/previous iteration of the course was around ~5% or less, so I'd say you are right on the money.
jfaucett 11y ago
Im Noticing a lot of these courses are coursera, and one of the most frustrating things about the plattform is the fact that most courses close and access to course materials/videos etc. is revoked after the course is over, this destroys the whole point of a mooc for me, and this choice seems arbitrary. Why cant education materials just be open and remain open to everyone, journals and textbooks included? There are enough tax paying citizens all over the world pumping money into our education systems that there is no reason it should not be freely available 24/7 to all. The fact that unlimited free education still doesnt exist in 2015 makes me sad everytime I think about it.
- acjohnson55 11y ago
  I agree. Coursera's approach seems to capture the worst of both worlds of traditional and online ed. It lacks the live lecture and person-to-person contact of a traditional college course. Yet, it maintains the timeboxed approach of traditional ed, which exists chiefly to provide simultaneity, to scale real-life human contact to lecture-hall size. Now I realize that some aspects of the way some courses are run require simultaneity. Things like human-powered grading, by TAs or peers. But they don't have to be designed that way. I've taken Coursera courses that are largely machine graded. For those, there doesn't seem to be any real reason why the courses are timeboxed. And even for courses where this is difficult to design around, it seems like it should be possible to tighten the iteration cycle.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    I'm not sure "live lecture" is a unique positive of a traditional college course, at least if by live lecture you mean room of multi-hundred people. In fact, I'd argue that this aspect is one thing that MOOCs can handle very well. Of course, it's also something that remote learning has been able to handle well at least since the VCR was created. I'd argue that the other thing that MOOCs can do well is automated grading when that's appropriate for the material. What MOOCs do very badly is peer interactions whether for discussions or grading. Part of it's scale. Part of it's the vast differences in the levels and expectations of the participants. Of course, as you say, it's precisely for these reasons that we force courses to provide simultaneity.
mdevere 11y ago
I'm a big fan of uDacity, which only appears once in that list. For a novice, their 'Intro to Computer Science' course is fantastic, as is the follow-on 'Web Development' course, led by Steve Huffman.
amelius 11y ago
It would be nice if the prerequisites for a course were listed more clearly.
andyjohnson0 11y ago
I did #27 "Introduction to Mathematical Thinking" during Feb-April this year. I enjoyed it a lot and found it challenging without being impossible to complete. Finished with a distinction and a feeling of great satisfaction. I'm now doing Coursera's Interaction Design specialisation [1], which is proving to be very informative and a lot of fun. If you're considering doing a MOOC then I'd definitely recommend it. Choose a free, short-ish course to start with, make the commitment, and dive in. [1] https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction-design https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction-design
- sotojuan 11y ago
  That looks like a great series of courses. Unfortunately I am too busy with real school right now, but hopefully they offer them again.
hellofunk 11y ago
I'm a little surprised that there is no mention of iTunes University, or maybe that doesn't count as a MOOC. I know there are some very popular courses on there that are easy to access.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  iTunes university is really quite awesome. Only you need an Apple product to access it.
  - wlesieutre 11y ago
    iTunes runs on Windows
    - dagw 11y ago
      There are also bunch of third party apps for Android and Linux that let you download iTunes U lectures.
- GFischer 11y ago
  I didn't know it existed, I'll have to check it out.
chris_wot 11y ago
It's heartening there are so many math focused courses. With the Calculus course at https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1/ https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1/ - I'm going over differential calculus right now, but I'm getting somewhat stuck on the Chain Rule, and in particular working out how to use it to differentiate 2^x. The courses I've found so far haven't been all that helpful, even Khan academy is confusing me somewhat. Does this course explain things better?
- spacehome 11y ago
  Since 2 = e ^ ln 2, use the identity: 2^x = (e^(ln 2))^x = e ^ (x * ln 2)
  - VLM 11y ago
    Well, that's the specific example, but there exist a class of educational blocks such that the learner doesn't know where they're stuck, because if they could define it, the act of correctly defining the stuck step would inherently unstick it. So MOOC strategy works for some areas that don't have sticking points like that, but not so well where five minutes with a Socratic strategy tutor could save a lot of video re-watching time. Arguably, better video would point out likely sticking points. However, advanced math instructors got their position not by getting education degrees which theoretically vocationally train people to present like that, but got their position by being very successful when getting a PHD in an obscure and advanced part of the field. So if you're lucky, your higher math instructor might be a talented educator in addition to being a talented mathematician... but probably not, unfortunately. It would be interesting as a thought experiment, or maybe as a startup, to see a good (emphasis on good) K-12 math instructor with a strong background in educational teaching skills try to teach diffeqs or higher math in general. I suspect they'd be extremely good at it, although probably very slow.
    - huherto 11y ago
      A lot of those questions are taken care on the forums. People tend to stumble on the same sticking points. But it part of learning to learn in this new medium.
thewarrior 11y ago
The Design Of Computer Programs on Udacity by Peter Norvig is pretty awesome. As someone who's only been seriously programming for a year or two , each problem set went like this : Write the code here to do X : I write a messy 4 liner after lots of thinking. Professor Norvig comes along and does it in a simple functional one liner. Mind blown. He teaches good functional style program design one epiphany at a time.
- rcarrigan87 11y ago
  It's truly the best course I've ever taken for newbies to seriously up their skills. Can't recommend enough.
- h43k3r 11y ago
  Also look at the sudoku solver code by peter norvig on his website. He explains it in a very simple way for a beginner and his code is short and simple. http://norvig.com/sudoku.html http://norvig.com/sudoku.html
- sotojuan 11y ago
  Looks great. Will take a look at it when I learn Python.
- blacksmythe 11y ago
  >> Professor Norvig comes along and does it in a simple functional one liner. >> Mind blown. That is how I felt taking Martin Odersky's Scala course.
arnold_palmur 11y ago
I'm surprised, no Jeff Ullman Automata?
hicksca 11y ago
Surprise that a philosophy class ranked at number two. Other then that the list mostly looks like what you'd expect.
myth_buster 11y ago
I've been doing Coursera courses for the past few years in an on/off fashion. I'm pleasantly surprised by the courses that are more popular in this list. I think the pattern is that the foundational or introductory courses are popular as they have a larger audience. But it doesn't comment on the quality of the course. An interesting data point is the social media "Share" widget that appears on the right column [0]. [0] https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog
nraynaud 11y ago
I don't like education and universities and all that stuff, I would like them to release the videos and the text in the open, that I can learn my way, not in a supervised fashion, behind a login wall.
geomark 11y ago
I've completed a bunch of Coursera courses. Quality really varies. Even within the 9 course Data Science specialization [1] track some courses were rather poor while the rest were very good. I'm currently taking the #5 rated course [2]. It is excellent. But I'm only taking it because the Statisical Inference course in the Data Science specialization was so weak. I would also recommend the Cryptography 1 course by Dan Boneh on Coursera [3]. Excellent if you are at all interested in the subject. I always download the lecture videos, slides, quizzes, labs and exams because, as mentioned, many of the courses don't allow access once the class is completed. You definitely have to have plenty of self discipline to complete MOOCs. And I don't have any delusions about a Coursera certificate being useful in landing a job; that's not what I'm after. I'm building the skills I want to apply to my own projects. [1] https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhudatascience https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhudatascience [2] https://www.coursera.org/course/statistics https://www.coursera.org/course/statistics [3] https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto
- sawwit 11y ago
  https://www.coursetalk.com https://www.coursetalk.com has quite good reviews, especially on the more popular courses.
Confusion 11y ago
I'm not sure whether the number of people enrolled in a course is a very good measure for the impact of a course. I agree with some other commenters that the number of people that completed a course isn't necessarily a good measure either. Some measure that includes the percentage of videos watched, exercises attempted, links followed, etc. would probably better represent the actual impact of a course. Some considerations: all courses have lots of people that enroll to subsequently discover the course is hard, boring or otherwise not what they expected. I expect this number varies strongly per course. On the other hand, not attempting/passing exercises doesn't mean someone hasn't invested time in watching all lectures.
yeukhon 11y ago
I am surprised that Khan Academy is not recognized in this report probably because the scope is limited to just those offer by an accredited university. I think calculus and chemistry have helped many first and second years of college students taking introductory courses including myself. I think KA is probably the most popular MOOC for all ages, in the most accessible way given it only requires a YouTube account, which millions have for over a decade. But that's just my opinion. YouTube has a few really amazing courses available online. For example, UCB has a channel with up-to-date content that otherwise not available on MOOC platform. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMV45tHCYNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMV45tHCYNI is a very good class on data structure * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyUK5RAJg1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyUK5RAJg1c and the rest has very good lectures on theory of computation * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6_-ljgmXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6_-ljgmXE also very good for algorithms. I find MIT's version to be too theory based for practitioners. Anyway, I still watch MIT's just to complement anything missing (no two speakers can teach the same topic equally)
Dowwie 11y ago
It's insufficient to measure Popularity as the total number of registrants. People browse through course offerings, register, and may never return. Rating by the total number of students that completed a course would be even more revealing. Add a student retention rate, too. Etc etc.
ForHackernews 11y ago
I'll just throw in a plug here for Prof. Abu-Mostafa's Learning from Data course at Caltech, which is outstanding: http://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html http://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html Unlike Andrew Ng's Coursera Machine Learning class, it is a real, unadulterated Caltech class, and exactly as challenging as that implies. It delves much more deeply into the mathematics behind ML, and the homework assignments are quite time consuming. I took it as part of an interactive session through EdX, and the professor himself was extremely active on the forums: responding to student questions, clarifying lecture points, and giving homework suggestions--seemingly at all hours of the day and night.
Dowwie 11y ago
there's a MOOC aggregator to help keep on top of course offerings and it tracks programs globally: www.class-central.com
- Splendor 11y ago
  Clickable link: https://www.class-central.com/ https://www.class-central.com/
gloves 11y ago
I wonder how many of these were actually completed... Enrolment would be an empty number to me, completion would be the mark of quality.
- brudgers 11y ago
  It's lower, but still orders of magnitude greater than complete the equivalent bricks and mortar course. If 1% complete the Android course that's 50 years worth of two classes of 30 students a year. At 10% it would take Adam Porter 500 years. The thing about MOOC's is that scale is staggering.
jskonhovd 11y ago
I typically hate ranking lists like this, since I believe student completion rates are more important than enrollment. However, I did find some joy in finding a new MOOC I could add to the backlog of courses I need to take.
- Symmetry 11y ago
  I'm not sure why you'd worry about completion rates. When I've taken online courses I've completed all the lectures and their associated exercises. But if I'm taking a course it means I have some end in mind for the skills it teaches me and that makes any final project or exam superfluous.
  - Pamar 11y ago
    I have to disagree: for me the final project was important to immediately put to the test the things I had learned. And - as I explained above - if the course has peer-grading (almost a given if it has a final project, because you cannot automate the evaluation of a project) you learn even more by evaluating the ways other approached their solution.
kailuowang 11y ago
I found it very interesting that the second most popular Mooc of all time is a philosophy course. Although personally I like better the philosophy introduction offered by MIT: https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/24.00_1x/3T2014/info https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/24.00_1x/3T2014/info I am also looking forward to this one https://www.edx.org/course/philosophy-minds-machines-mitx-24-09x https://www.edx.org/course/philosophy-minds-machines-mitx-24... > An introduction to philosophy of mind, exploring consciousness, reality, AI, and more. The most in-depth philosophy course available online. > What you will learn The basics of argumentation Some central arguments for and against the view that a sufficiently powerful computer can think (AI) The main theories of mental states and their relations to physical states Some central arguments for and against the view that the world is not as we perceive it to be What the "hard problem of consciousness" is
alinspired 11y ago
Here is the list without 50 pagedowns: 1. Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems – Part 1 / University of Maryland 2. Introduction to Philosophy / University of Edinburgh 3. Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence / Case Western Reserve 4. Introduction to Computer Science / Harvard University 5. Data Analysis and Statistical Inference / Duke University 6. Gamification / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton 7. Social Psychology / Wesleyan University 8. Circuits and Electronics / MIT 9. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue / Duke University 10. Creativity, Innovation and Change / Penn State 11. A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior / Duke University 12. Learn to Program: The Fundamentals / University of Toronto 13. Game Theory / Stanford University, University of British Columbia 14. Greek and Roman Mythology / University of Pennsylvania 15. Startup Engineering / Stanford University 16. Computational Investing, Part I / Georgia Institute of Technology 17. Financial Markets / Yale University 18. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence / Stanford University 19. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming / MIT 20. Introduction to Financial Accounting / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton 21. Modern & Contemporary American Poetry / University of Pennsylvania 22. Machine Learning / Stanford University 23. Data Analysis / Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School 24. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python / MIT 25. Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science / Harvard University 26. Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge, and Consciousness / MIT 27. Introduction to Operations Management / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton 28. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking / Stanford University 29. Justice / Harvard University 30. A History of the World Since 1300 / Princeton University 31. Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps / University of London/ Goldsmiths 32. Neural Networks for Machine Learning / University of Toronto 33. Learn to Program – Crafting Quality Code / University of Toronto 34. Critical Thinking in Global Challenges / The University of Edinburgh 35. Statistics – Making Sense of Data / University of Toronto 36. Introduction to Biology – The Secret of Life / MIT 37. Drugs and the Brain / Caltech 38. Introduction to Databases / Stanford University 39. The Ancient Greek Hero / Harvard University 40. Social Network Analysis / University of Michigan 41. Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health Research / Harvard University 42. Introduction to Astronomy / Duke University 43. Human Health and Global Environmental Change / Harvard University 44. Software Defined Networking / Princeton University 45. Introduction to Statistics: Descriptive Statistics / UC Berkeley 46. Computing for Data Analysis / Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 47. Functional Programming Principles in Scala / Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne 48. The Camera Never Lies / University of London/ Royal Holloway 49. Calculus One / Ohio State University 50. Maps and the Geospatial Revolution / Penn State

200 points by Schiphol 11y ago

Pamar 11y ago

Interesting but... I enrolled and completed a couple of the courses listed there. I'd be interested in seeing for each what percentage of enrolled students actually completed the whole course. Anecdotally the numbers are really really low (as in "around 5%").

Schiphol 11y ago
5% sounds pretty high to me, considering how low (nonexistent, really) the entry barrier is. Where does that figure come from, if I may ask?
- Pamar 11y ago
  I think I took it from an article online, and it matches my own experience (when you actually finish one of these there is often, but not necessarily always, a message from the course manager with some statistics about how many people turned in the final assignment or are anyway eligible for the certificate). EDIT: Found a couple of articles: http://er.educause.edu/articles/2014/12/mooc-completion-and-retention-in-the-context-of-student-intent http://er.educause.edu/articles/2014/12/mooc-completion-and-... http://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/6/retention-and-intention-in-massive-open-online-courses-in-depth http://er.educause.edu/articles/2013/6/retention-and-intenti...
  - Schiphol 11y ago
    Thanks for this. Incidentally, the second paper you link to is co-auhored, among others, by Daphne Koller, who teaches [this great course on probabilistic graphical models](https://www.coursera.org/course/pgm https://www.coursera.org/course/pgm) and Andrew Ng, who teaches [the best-known intro MOOC in machine learning](https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning/home/welcome https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning/home/welcome).
- roymurdock 11y ago
  Low barriers to entry would bump the completion rate down, as people are less invested in finishing the course. That's one of the reasons that college completion rates are usually >90%.
dagw 11y ago
I'm a huge MOOC fan, but after completing a couple of the very early Stanford ones I haven't completed any. Quite frankly I don't see completing a MOOC as the best use of time. I use MOOCs to either pick up new skills I need for work, brush up on stuff I haven't looked at since University or as 'entertainment', basically learning interesting stuff purely for fun. For non of these things actually completing the course to their satisfaction adds anything to their value. I wish people would stop looking so much at completion scores and not judge the concept as a failure just because they are so low.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  Maybe at one point, considering our era, people reach full independence and can pick a book and a problem, with an ad-hoc study group and/or co-working space and just do it.
- devit 11y ago
  Yeah, not sure why completion matters. All that matters is whether the user found some useful information in it, and just fully watching one video lecture should be enough for that metric.
  - Pamar 11y ago
    Well, in a couple of cases (here is my current list of MOOCs I took part in, if anyone cares: http://pa-mar.net/Main/Study/Onlinecourses.html http://pa-mar.net/Main/Study/Onlinecourses.html) in order to get completion you had to submit a end-of-course project which was very interesting in itself, and you also learned a lot because in order to get it "graded" you had to grade at least 5 other projects randomly selected among the other participants. So you either saw different approaches to the same problem (e.g. Data Analysis) or everyone discussing a different problem (An Introduction to Operations Management). I am sure that I got a lot (in terms of learning) from that part of the course. If everyone just picks and chooses some papers/videos and drops out before the end you don't get anyone to grade your work and you have no other work to grade (and possibly learn from).
- VLM 11y ago
frigg 11y ago
I did follow a few courses on coursera and I remember the professor saying that the number of students who successfully completed the first/previous iteration of the course was around ~5% or less, so I'd say you are right on the money.

jfaucett 11y ago

Im Noticing a lot of these courses are coursera, and one of the most frustrating things about the plattform is the fact that most courses close and access to course materials/videos etc. is revoked after the course is over, this destroys the whole point of a mooc for me, and this choice seems arbitrary. Why cant education materials just be open and remain open to everyone, journals and textbooks included? There are enough tax paying citizens all over the world pumping money into our education systems that there is no reason it should not be freely available 24/7 to all. The fact that unlimited free education still doesnt exist in 2015 makes me sad everytime I think about it.

acjohnson55 11y ago
I agree. Coursera's approach seems to capture the worst of both worlds of traditional and online ed. It lacks the live lecture and person-to-person contact of a traditional college course. Yet, it maintains the timeboxed approach of traditional ed, which exists chiefly to provide simultaneity, to scale real-life human contact to lecture-hall size. Now I realize that some aspects of the way some courses are run require simultaneity. Things like human-powered grading, by TAs or peers. But they don't have to be designed that way. I've taken Coursera courses that are largely machine graded. For those, there doesn't seem to be any real reason why the courses are timeboxed. And even for courses where this is difficult to design around, it seems like it should be possible to tighten the iteration cycle.
- ghaff 11y ago
  I'm not sure "live lecture" is a unique positive of a traditional college course, at least if by live lecture you mean room of multi-hundred people. In fact, I'd argue that this aspect is one thing that MOOCs can handle very well. Of course, it's also something that remote learning has been able to handle well at least since the VCR was created. I'd argue that the other thing that MOOCs can do well is automated grading when that's appropriate for the material. What MOOCs do very badly is peer interactions whether for discussions or grading. Part of it's scale. Part of it's the vast differences in the levels and expectations of the participants. Of course, as you say, it's precisely for these reasons that we force courses to provide simultaneity.

mdevere 11y ago

I'm a big fan of uDacity, which only appears once in that list. For a novice, their 'Intro to Computer Science' course is fantastic, as is the follow-on 'Web Development' course, led by Steve Huffman.

amelius 11y ago

It would be nice if the prerequisites for a course were listed more clearly.

andyjohnson0 11y ago

I did #27 "Introduction to Mathematical Thinking" during Feb-April this year. I enjoyed it a lot and found it challenging without being impossible to complete. Finished with a distinction and a feeling of great satisfaction. I'm now doing Coursera's Interaction Design specialisation [1], which is proving to be very informative and a lot of fun. If you're considering doing a MOOC then I'd definitely recommend it. Choose a free, short-ish course to start with, make the commitment, and dive in. [1] https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction-design https://www.coursera.org/specializations/interaction-design

sotojuan 11y ago
That looks like a great series of courses. Unfortunately I am too busy with real school right now, but hopefully they offer them again.

hellofunk 11y ago

I'm a little surprised that there is no mention of iTunes University, or maybe that doesn't count as a MOOC. I know there are some very popular courses on there that are easy to access.

chris_wot 11y ago
iTunes university is really quite awesome. Only you need an Apple product to access it.
- wlesieutre 11y ago
  iTunes runs on Windows
  - dagw 11y ago
    There are also bunch of third party apps for Android and Linux that let you download iTunes U lectures.
GFischer 11y ago
I didn't know it existed, I'll have to check it out.

chris_wot 11y ago

It's heartening there are so many math focused courses. With the Calculus course at https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1/ https://www.coursera.org/learn/calculus1/ - I'm going over differential calculus right now, but I'm getting somewhat stuck on the Chain Rule, and in particular working out how to use it to differentiate 2^x. The courses I've found so far haven't been all that helpful, even Khan academy is confusing me somewhat. Does this course explain things better?

spacehome 11y ago
Since 2 = e ^ ln 2, use the identity: 2^x = (e^(ln 2))^x = e ^ (x * ln 2)
- VLM 11y ago
  Well, that's the specific example, but there exist a class of educational blocks such that the learner doesn't know where they're stuck, because if they could define it, the act of correctly defining the stuck step would inherently unstick it. So MOOC strategy works for some areas that don't have sticking points like that, but not so well where five minutes with a Socratic strategy tutor could save a lot of video re-watching time. Arguably, better video would point out likely sticking points. However, advanced math instructors got their position not by getting education degrees which theoretically vocationally train people to present like that, but got their position by being very successful when getting a PHD in an obscure and advanced part of the field. So if you're lucky, your higher math instructor might be a talented educator in addition to being a talented mathematician... but probably not, unfortunately. It would be interesting as a thought experiment, or maybe as a startup, to see a good (emphasis on good) K-12 math instructor with a strong background in educational teaching skills try to teach diffeqs or higher math in general. I suspect they'd be extremely good at it, although probably very slow.
  - huherto 11y ago
    A lot of those questions are taken care on the forums. People tend to stumble on the same sticking points. But it part of learning to learn in this new medium.

thewarrior 11y ago

The Design Of Computer Programs on Udacity by Peter Norvig is pretty awesome. As someone who's only been seriously programming for a year or two , each problem set went like this : Write the code here to do X : I write a messy 4 liner after lots of thinking. Professor Norvig comes along and does it in a simple functional one liner. Mind blown. He teaches good functional style program design one epiphany at a time.

rcarrigan87 11y ago
It's truly the best course I've ever taken for newbies to seriously up their skills. Can't recommend enough.
h43k3r 11y ago
Also look at the sudoku solver code by peter norvig on his website. He explains it in a very simple way for a beginner and his code is short and simple. http://norvig.com/sudoku.html http://norvig.com/sudoku.html
sotojuan 11y ago
Looks great. Will take a look at it when I learn Python.
blacksmythe 11y ago
>> Professor Norvig comes along and does it in a simple functional one liner. >> Mind blown. That is how I felt taking Martin Odersky's Scala course.

arnold_palmur 11y ago

I'm surprised, no Jeff Ullman Automata?

hicksca 11y ago

Surprise that a philosophy class ranked at number two. Other then that the list mostly looks like what you'd expect.

myth_buster 11y ago

I've been doing Coursera courses for the past few years in an on/off fashion. I'm pleasantly surprised by the courses that are more popular in this list. I think the pattern is that the foundational or introductory courses are popular as they have a larger audience. But it doesn't comment on the quality of the course. An interesting data point is the social media "Share" widget that appears on the right column [0]. [0] https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog https://www.coursera.org/course/rprog

nraynaud 11y ago

I don't like education and universities and all that stuff, I would like them to release the videos and the text in the open, that I can learn my way, not in a supervised fashion, behind a login wall.

geomark 11y ago

I've completed a bunch of Coursera courses. Quality really varies. Even within the 9 course Data Science specialization [1] track some courses were rather poor while the rest were very good. I'm currently taking the #5 rated course [2]. It is excellent. But I'm only taking it because the Statisical Inference course in the Data Science specialization was so weak. I would also recommend the Cryptography 1 course by Dan Boneh on Coursera [3]. Excellent if you are at all interested in the subject. I always download the lecture videos, slides, quizzes, labs and exams because, as mentioned, many of the courses don't allow access once the class is completed. You definitely have to have plenty of self discipline to complete MOOCs. And I don't have any delusions about a Coursera certificate being useful in landing a job; that's not what I'm after. I'm building the skills I want to apply to my own projects. [1] https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhudatascience https://www.coursera.org/specializations/jhudatascience [2] https://www.coursera.org/course/statistics https://www.coursera.org/course/statistics [3] https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto

sawwit 11y ago
https://www.coursetalk.com https://www.coursetalk.com has quite good reviews, especially on the more popular courses.

Confusion 11y ago

I'm not sure whether the number of people enrolled in a course is a very good measure for the impact of a course. I agree with some other commenters that the number of people that completed a course isn't necessarily a good measure either. Some measure that includes the percentage of videos watched, exercises attempted, links followed, etc. would probably better represent the actual impact of a course. Some considerations: all courses have lots of people that enroll to subsequently discover the course is hard, boring or otherwise not what they expected. I expect this number varies strongly per course. On the other hand, not attempting/passing exercises doesn't mean someone hasn't invested time in watching all lectures.

yeukhon 11y ago

I am surprised that Khan Academy is not recognized in this report probably because the scope is limited to just those offer by an accredited university. I think calculus and chemistry have helped many first and second years of college students taking introductory courses including myself. I think KA is probably the most popular MOOC for all ages, in the most accessible way given it only requires a YouTube account, which millions have for over a decade. But that's just my opinion. YouTube has a few really amazing courses available online. For example, UCB has a channel with up-to-date content that otherwise not available on MOOC platform. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMV45tHCYNI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMV45tHCYNI is a very good class on data structure * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyUK5RAJg1c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyUK5RAJg1c and the rest has very good lectures on theory of computation * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6_-ljgmXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G6_-ljgmXE also very good for algorithms. I find MIT's version to be too theory based for practitioners. Anyway, I still watch MIT's just to complement anything missing (no two speakers can teach the same topic equally)

Dowwie 11y ago

It's insufficient to measure Popularity as the total number of registrants. People browse through course offerings, register, and may never return. Rating by the total number of students that completed a course would be even more revealing. Add a student retention rate, too. Etc etc.

ForHackernews 11y ago

I'll just throw in a plug here for Prof. Abu-Mostafa's Learning from Data course at Caltech, which is outstanding: http://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html http://work.caltech.edu/telecourse.html Unlike Andrew Ng's Coursera Machine Learning class, it is a real, unadulterated Caltech class, and exactly as challenging as that implies. It delves much more deeply into the mathematics behind ML, and the homework assignments are quite time consuming. I took it as part of an interactive session through EdX, and the professor himself was extremely active on the forums: responding to student questions, clarifying lecture points, and giving homework suggestions--seemingly at all hours of the day and night.

Dowwie 11y ago

there's a MOOC aggregator to help keep on top of course offerings and it tracks programs globally: www.class-central.com

Splendor 11y ago
Clickable link: https://www.class-central.com/ https://www.class-central.com/

gloves 11y ago

I wonder how many of these were actually completed... Enrolment would be an empty number to me, completion would be the mark of quality.

brudgers 11y ago
It's lower, but still orders of magnitude greater than complete the equivalent bricks and mortar course. If 1% complete the Android course that's 50 years worth of two classes of 30 students a year. At 10% it would take Adam Porter 500 years. The thing about MOOC's is that scale is staggering.

jskonhovd 11y ago

I typically hate ranking lists like this, since I believe student completion rates are more important than enrollment. However, I did find some joy in finding a new MOOC I could add to the backlog of courses I need to take.

Symmetry 11y ago
I'm not sure why you'd worry about completion rates. When I've taken online courses I've completed all the lectures and their associated exercises. But if I'm taking a course it means I have some end in mind for the skills it teaches me and that makes any final project or exam superfluous.
- Pamar 11y ago
  I have to disagree: for me the final project was important to immediately put to the test the things I had learned. And - as I explained above - if the course has peer-grading (almost a given if it has a final project, because you cannot automate the evaluation of a project) you learn even more by evaluating the ways other approached their solution.

kailuowang 11y ago

I found it very interesting that the second most popular Mooc of all time is a philosophy course. Although personally I like better the philosophy introduction offered by MIT: https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/24.00_1x/3T2014/info https://courses.edx.org/courses/MITx/24.00_1x/3T2014/info I am also looking forward to this one https://www.edx.org/course/philosophy-minds-machines-mitx-24-09x https://www.edx.org/course/philosophy-minds-machines-mitx-24... > An introduction to philosophy of mind, exploring consciousness, reality, AI, and more. The most in-depth philosophy course available online. > What you will learn The basics of argumentation Some central arguments for and against the view that a sufficiently powerful computer can think (AI) The main theories of mental states and their relations to physical states Some central arguments for and against the view that the world is not as we perceive it to be What the "hard problem of consciousness" is

alinspired 11y ago

Here is the list without 50 pagedowns: 1. Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems – Part 1 / University of Maryland 2. Introduction to Philosophy / University of Edinburgh 3. Inspiring Leadership through Emotional Intelligence / Case Western Reserve 4. Introduction to Computer Science / Harvard University 5. Data Analysis and Statistical Inference / Duke University 6. Gamification / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton 7. Social Psychology / Wesleyan University 8. Circuits and Electronics / MIT 9. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue / Duke University 10. Creativity, Innovation and Change / Penn State 11. A Beginner’s Guide to Irrational Behavior / Duke University 12. Learn to Program: The Fundamentals / University of Toronto 13. Game Theory / Stanford University, University of British Columbia 14. Greek and Roman Mythology / University of Pennsylvania 15. Startup Engineering / Stanford University 16. Computational Investing, Part I / Georgia Institute of Technology 17. Financial Markets / Yale University 18. Introduction to Artificial Intelligence / Stanford University 19. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming / MIT 20. Introduction to Financial Accounting / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton 21. Modern & Contemporary American Poetry / University of Pennsylvania 22. Machine Learning / Stanford University 23. Data Analysis / Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School 24. Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python / MIT 25. Science and Cooking: From Haute Cuisine to Soft Matter Science / Harvard University 26. Introduction to Philosophy: God, Knowledge, and Consciousness / MIT 27. Introduction to Operations Management / University of Pennsylvania / Wharton 28. Introduction to Mathematical Thinking / Stanford University 29. Justice / Harvard University 30. A History of the World Since 1300 / Princeton University 31. Creative Programming for Digital Media & Mobile Apps / University of London/ Goldsmiths 32. Neural Networks for Machine Learning / University of Toronto 33. Learn to Program – Crafting Quality Code / University of Toronto 34. Critical Thinking in Global Challenges / The University of Edinburgh 35. Statistics – Making Sense of Data / University of Toronto 36. Introduction to Biology – The Secret of Life / MIT 37. Drugs and the Brain / Caltech 38. Introduction to Databases / Stanford University 39. The Ancient Greek Hero / Harvard University 40. Social Network Analysis / University of Michigan 41. Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health Research / Harvard University 42. Introduction to Astronomy / Duke University 43. Human Health and Global Environmental Change / Harvard University 44. Software Defined Networking / Princeton University 45. Introduction to Statistics: Descriptive Statistics / UC Berkeley 46. Computing for Data Analysis / Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 47. Functional Programming Principles in Scala / Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne 48. The Camera Never Lies / University of London/ Royal Holloway 49. Calculus One / Ohio State University 50. Maps and the Geospatial Revolution / Penn State