Guest Post: Making Sense of MOOCs
With the year winding down, higher education journalists and pundits are wondering whether 2013 will be remembered as a tipping point for MOOCs - massive open online courses. Earlier this month a new study from the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education found MOOCS had "relatively few active users," with "few persisting to course's end." At the same time, a federal advisory council is urging regulators to be patient during these relatively early days of development for the platform, and allowing some breathing room for the experiment to continue. In light of these developments, it seemed like a good time to revisit a session from EWA's National Seminar, held at Stanford University in May. Today's guest blogger is Gwendolyn Glenn of WYPR Public Radio in Baltimore. Stream any session from National Seminar in your browser, or subscribe via RSS or iTunes. For more on higher education, visit EWA's Story Starters online resource.
The number of students enrolled in MOOCS, massive open online courses that are offered free, has increased dramatically over the past year. At EWA’s National Seminar, Daphne Koller, co-founder of Coursera, a leading MOOC provider, said enrollment in their classes jumped from 700,000 in February 2013 to more than 3.4 million students in May.
Only a third of MOOC takers are in the United States, according to Koller, with