I think both self-pacing and and scheduled courses have their own advantages. For a self-pacing course, it's more flexible to learn, but it might also be too fl

I think both self-pacing and and scheduled courses have their own advantages. For a self-pacing course, it's more flexible to learn, but it might also be too flexible so that students cannot finish it. And the forums for those self-paced courses are just like a ghost town. On the other hands, a scheduled course with some due dates make all the students in the same rate of progress. It might have more interaction between students. It definitely helps if online students can have some interactions. Also, under the stress of the due dates, students might have more motivations to finish those assignments. I used to sign up many courses online (Coursera, Udacity, eDX, Code School, Treehouse, etc ... ) but finish few of them. I'm now trying to hold some small study groups (3-5 people) and see whether we have higher probabilities to finish those courses or not. In my experience, social power is unlimited. My second cents.