4 ms·

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 actu

by 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.

by Pamar 11y ago

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.