

Massive study on MOOCs - sravfeyn
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/04/massive-study-on-moocs/

======
bruceb
"Across 12 courses, participants who paid for “ID-verified” certificates (with
costs ranging from $50 to $250) earned certifications at a higher rate than
other participants: 59 percent, on average, compared to 5 percent. Students
opting for the ID-verified track appear to have stronger intentions to
complete courses, and the monetary stake may add an extra form of motivation."

Would be interesting to know more about these people.

~~~
griffinmahon
I'm one of them! But in the end I got behind in the course (it was on the
Magna Carta, very interesting), and it closed before I could finish the
material/assignments, so I unfortunately wasted 40 dollars (except I like to
think of it as a donation to Coursera).

------
neuromancer2701
I took the Intro to AI and later AI for Robotics through Udacity but I was
only able to get through one other course.

Now I am in my first semester of Georgia Tech's OMCS and I think it has been
very challenging and enlightening. One improvement would be to get other
colleges to make a macro-OMCS. Where you could take 10 classes across a wider
selection. Maybe that will come with time. I also think there would be a great
need for a $7k OBCS, that might be the next step in offering education to a
wide group of people.

~~~
cgearhart
I'm not sure that I see the benefit of a decentralized degree. Udacity &
Coursera are already pursuing a path to aggregate content from many schools,
and the OMS CS course catalog will not have traditional limits on availability
-- once courses are in the catalog they can continue offering them every
semester. As a fellow OMS student, the limiting factor has always been
graders/TAs up to this point.

I concur about the need for an OBS CS (or ME, EE, CPE,...) at $7k. Cal State
Monterey has a fully online BS program...that costs _more_ than the resident
program. I don't understand how it costs $300-500 per credit hour for the
undergrad programs, except to avoid devaluing the resident offerings.

~~~
reddyb
"I don't understand how it costs $300-500 per credit hour for the undergrad
programs, except to avoid devaluing the resident offerings."

In MOOCs thousands of people are enrolled at the same time, and support is
provided by the community of students. It's incredible how this phrasing
sounds positive - even to me - while it basically means that support by a
qualified instructor cannot be guaranteed and is unlikely to be provided.

In (good) accredited online programs - BSc or MSc - there are 10 to 20
students enrolled per course and you have direct access to the instructor who
will adapt his lectures based on the audience feedbacks and specifics. This
costs money and therefore has to come at a price.

If the program doesn't offer the above, or if you are a passive student who
don't ask questions frequently and interact with others, then I'm with you,
"why paying this price ?".

By the way, I am not saying that MOOCs are useless. Personally I see it under
this perspective : the Educational System is so broken that in many cases
streaming a video to thousands of people without providing them dedicated
support is equivalent to the experience they get in physical classrooms.

~~~
cgearhart
> In MOOCs thousands of people are enrolled at the same time, and support is
> provided by the community of students.

The OMS CS at Georgia Tech (an accredited program) has about 2,500 students,
with 200-500 per class. With a few rare exceptions, the instructor of record
is an active participant, as well as the TAs. This model is viable for online
classes.

My real point was that I don't understand how online versions of the _exact_
same classes at the same schools cost double or more of what they charge for
the resident program. Keeping the example of CSUMB, they charge a flat
$500/credit online [0] ($12,000 annually for 12 unit semesters), but only
$5,472 annually [1] for 12 _or more_ units per semester. Even the non-resident
tuition for the on-campus program ($372/unit) is less than the online price.
It costs _less_ to go to CSUMB for four years than to go to a JC for 60 units
and CSUMB online to finish a BA/BS degree.

How does any of that make sense?

~~~
reddyb
Yea I got you. For the OMS CS at Georgia Tech, I would never enroll in such
conditions to be honest, not for a Graduate program and especially not if I'll
be paying thousands of dollars, whether it is on-campus or online.

I don't doubt this model is viable, I'm not even saying it's bad quality.
Certainly you'll find many people who'll tell you that they learned a lot and
that they've blosomed. However I doubt this is an optimal solution, there is
clearly room to improve quality a lot by decreasing the class sizes - thus
increasing the individual support.

"The instructor is an active participant" means a lot. He becomes a
"participant" instead of being an instructor. The reason is simple, there's no
way to accomodate 200 people. Do you think he'll have the time to have
something as small as a 10 minutes discussion with every student every week ?

When I was at college, I was regularly talking with my instructors for 30
minutes, sometimes hours in their office. To me it's crucial at every stage of
education and not enough emphasized in the current system. But I think it is
critical to have this direct, easy and unrestricted access to the instructor
at graduate school.

At some college, I've seen a graduate school instructor complaning about the
fact that he had to accept 23 students for a term instead of 15-18 because the
demand was too high.

Concerning your main point, here are my thoughts :

\- If they set the online programs at a lower price, then it will "mean" that
it is lower quality than the on-campus program.

\- If they set it at the same price, potential on-campus students will choose
to enroll online to avoid having to attend lectures, thus taking the best of
both worlds.

\- Therefore the best option for them is to price online programs higher so
people who are able to be on-campus will go on-campus and the rest will go
online. I wouldn't be surprised if they also take into account the cost of
housing to avoid making the online option too attractive.

Tuitions are not the only source of revenue for colleges, so they have to be
careful and make sure students keep coming on-campus.

~~~
cgearhart
> He becomes a "participant" instead of being an instructor.

I just meant that they are actively involved; they are certainly still
teachers.

Regarding the pricing of online undergrad programs, I think schools have
converged on a particular price level because it is adequate. The supply side
of education is rather insular thanks to accreditation requirements (not a bad
thing), but it means that there also isn't much incentive for competition on
the price -- especially when the offering competes with your own core product.

The data so far indicates that the market for the OMS is disproportionately
older and more fully employed than traditional resident MS students.
Similarly, much of the core offering of traditional undergrad programs is
focused on the 18-24 demographic, so I wouldn't be surprised to find that the
online offerings appeal more to older and more fully employed undergrad
students who can afford the higher tuition(perhaps with tuition assistance) in
exchange for the increased schedule flexibility.

~~~
reddyb
> I just meant that they are actively involved; they are certainly still
> teachers.

Sure I got you, I was pointing that in such conditions it's unlikely that they
can play they teaching role fully. They become more like participants in
forums who will sometimes get involved in a thread, sometimes not.

> The data so far indicates...

Very interesting, but I think it's a consequence of the pricing and not the
cause. People go online when they can't go on-campus for one reason or an
other (job, family, live in another country, etc...). It is the purpose of the
pricing.

