
The Online Education Revolution Drifts Off Course - thejteam
http://www.npr.org/2013/12/31/258420151/the-online-education-revolution-drifts-off-course
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noelwelsh
The continual focus on completion rates is rather misguided. Like others here,
I have taken many a MOOC, and consider the experience useful and successful. I
have also never completed a single MOOC, doing little of the homework in most
cases. I have no use for more pieces of papers, and really no time to do
homework, but I get what I want, which is an overview of a subject area and
some entertainment while doing the chores. Learning about behavioural
economics from Dan Ariely's course was one of the most useful things I did in
2013, and I am independently learning more about the field.

Obviously there are issues the MOOC providers need to resolve. It's not clear
how they will make money, and if they really want to go the volume model they
probably need to lower the level of the courses offered -- more Udemy than
Udacity -- or offer some kind of recognised accreditation so that students can
justify devoting the time required to really learn material. In the language
of startups, with which I'm sure we're all familiar, they haven't found
product-market fit. It may be the case that people like me are not considered
useful by MOOC providers -- I'm unlikely to ever give them money. That's fair
enough and I have no problem with it.

I find articles like the one linked rather annoying. It's clear that MOOCs are
a thing, and what we really need is discussion of how they're going to
integrate with the educational landscape, not sniping from the sidelines. In
this case it's ok, as it's a journalistic organisation reporting on what
happened. However I read the same thing from academics, which is a real shame.
Many seem to get joy from the failures of MOOCs, no doubt because they see
them as a threat to their livelihood. I'd rather see some engagement with the
issue.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Indeed, the relevant number is not (students who complete) / (students who
sign up). A better number to look at is (students who complete) / (cost of
class) - i.e., an actual benefit/cost ratio. (It's not the best number, since
it ignores the value gained by students who partially complete.)

If I pay $2,000 and have a 4% chance of completion, that sucks. If I pay $0
and have a 4% chance of completion, that's pure win.

~~~
mathattack
And add the value of some learning along the way for masses of non finishers.
One could argue this is still better for non-graduates as it still doesn't
leave them in debt.

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wavesounds
If you agree that "time is money" then you can consider a MOOC completion rate
equivalent to an SAAS conversion rate, in which case 4% would be pretty
good[1].

I find it odd MOOC's are being held to such a high standard, when the status
quo alternative is failing so hard [2].

1\. [https://www.quora.com/Business/What-is-a-typical-
conversion-...](https://www.quora.com/Business/What-is-a-typical-conversion-
ratio-for-a-B2B-SaaS-business-from-free-to-paying-users) 2\.
[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/30/p...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/30/peter-
thiels-graph-of-the-year/)

------
ksuvhgwef
There is another story here. I was involved with OMI before, during and after
the initial offering of the Udacity courses. I saw most of it go down.

First, it is important to understand the OMI is a school politicized through
and through. Jerry Brown has deep connections to the school, having financed
much of the schools on-goings and involving himself continually in the
school's decision making. The school has performed alright but not as well
enough, it seems, for Jerry Brown. The governor's displeasure does have some
merit considering the copious resources the school possesses in areas like
staffing and technology.

It appears now that the governor personally approached Udacity in hopes that
they might be the solution to the school's lackluster performance. The folks
at Udacity appear to me to have been genuinely naive and unfamiliar with the
urban charter school world. They apparently accepted straight out what the
school told them about student skill and motivation levels. So I believe they
were genuinely confused when algebra repeater students turned out not have the
pre-algebra skills they were supposed to possess but instead had skills often
not much beyond elementary school level. I also think they were truly stumped
by the student data that resulted from the school secretly asking adult
student-aids to do the work for them, a commonly practiced form of cheating
throughout the country in online credit-recovery courses.

Sometime after the whole Udacity experiment went south, I spoke with one of
the faculty members more involved in the courses. This faculty member
suggested that the Udacity representatives did realize at some point the
reality of the mess into which they had allowed themselves to be led. However,
also being aware of the politics of the situation and not wanting to offend
the govenor, they permitted themselves to be scapegoated.

In the end, I suspect that Udacity is just happy to get back to it's original
noble mission of providing free, high-quality, career-oriented online-
education to the world and forget this small ill-fated diversion.

~~~
ksuvhgwef
I just remembered I forgot to describe the student motivation. It was very
low. The students in the Udacity course were generally put on computers
unsupervised and expected to work independently. The students often
interpreted this setup as an open invitation to go to video game websites or
watch fight videos on the newly unblocked youtube. When then confronted after
sometime with their lack of progress, the students would use the excuse that
the course work was too hard, not having tried it in the first place. Much of
the staff seemed to be aware of the reality of the student excuses, but backed
their excuses anyway.

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WasimBhai
Look at it from this way:

I couldn't expect to have access to courses like Probabilistic Graphical
Models and Neural Networks by Hinton at probably any of the universities in my
country. By popularizing science, by being able to reach such a massive
population, even if it inspires a 1% of those taking the course, it is
absolutely better than Hinton or Kohler teaching a course to 50 - 250 students
at UoT and Stanford per semester.

This is long term we are talking about. Yes, the whole thing must be sustained
by business, but I find a moral objective too here.

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Turing_Machine
I sure wish everyone would stop claiming (or at least strongly implying) that
"MOOC" and "online education" are synonymous. They aren't.

~~~
meej
Hear, hear! I got my graduate degree in an online program that was a dozen
years old with a starting cohort of 120 people, synchronous lectures, and
campus visits once a semester. it was online but it was not a MOOC.

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mark_l_watson
I have completed five Coursera classes, and sampled about six others. I think
these classes are valuable for people who are self motivated and don't need
formal certification in the form of a degree.

A plus is that several of the teachers were absolutely world class.

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girvo
Somewhat related: do Silicon Valley startups consider someone with actual
completed MOOC courses an asset when looking to hire?

~~~
edtechdev
No: edX tried matching 868 high-performing MOOC students with employers, and
none were hired.

[http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/edx-drops-plans-to-
co...](http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/edx-drops-plans-to-connect-mooc-
students-with-employers/48987?cid=wc)

~~~
girvo
Huh, well, there you go. There's your issue for MOOCs then.

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brianstorms
Also, there is no "revolution" here. That's just hype, both from the media and
the companies.

MOOCs would have existed decades ago, but the cost of distribution of the
content was high. With the arrival of YouTube and cheap content delivery
networks including Amazon's, MOOCs suddenly eliminated the distribution
problem.

But it turns out that wasn't enough. When 90% of your "students" fail to
complete the courses, you have an epic failure on your hands. MOOCs are not
working.

~~~
sghill

        When 90% of your "students" fail to complete the courses, you have an epic failure on your hands. MOOCs are not working.
    

I completed every course I signed up for when I was going to university.
Completion percentage was important because I was, and still am, paying to be
there. As a result, I enrolled in very little that I was simply curious about.
Virtually every class I took was a step toward a degree.

Since graduating, I've enrolled in a handful of MOOCs. I've finished less than
half of these courses, but they have satisfied my curiosity and have given me
something new and different to learn. I most certainly would not have paid for
the experience, but I feel I'm better off because of it. I'd say this is
working and far from an epic failure.

~~~
smacktoward
It starts to look a little different when you see people trumpeting MOOCs as
"the future of higher education," though.

The thing about MOOCs is that to attract funding, media attention, and
participation from big-name universities and top teaching talent -- all the
things you'd desperately want to have if you were the one pitching them, in
other words -- they really need MOOCs to work as something bigger than just a
sideline for the intellectually curious, because the market for "a sideline
for the intellectually curious" isn't big enough to attract any of those
things on its own. It's a niche market at best.

Higher education _as a sector_ , on the other hand, is _anything_ but a niche
market; so if MOOCs could be positioned as The Future of Higher Education, the
thing that is going to replace universities in the 21st century, that would
suit their advocates' interests nicely. But the data coming out of the MOOC
experiments to date make them look less and less like the sort of thing you'd
want to bet your kid's future on exclusively if you had any alternatives at
all, which undermines that positioning.

~~~
ericd
For people fully devoted to studying, and with some sort of extrinsic
incentive to complete the courses, I imagine that the completion rate would be
significantly higher. When I was at MIT, some of the courses worked almost
exactly like MOOCs do now, and just as many people completed those as the
traditional courses.

With MOOCs, a ton of the takers are not full-time students. I've taken some
MOOC courses and only completed one (probabilistic graphical models). The main
reason is that I have much higher priorities now, and the courses are on a
strict schedule. The first time there's a choice between getting a piece of
code finished that I need for a business deal done and finishing a problem
set, that problem set is not getting finished.

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agarwlGaurav
This clearly is a propaganda against MOOC. Sebastian Thrun is talking about
improving the course and the journalist is trying to misquote as if he is
saying the whole idea of MOOC itself is not working. Also 4% figure without
number is as useless as it could be. What is 4% of $1 billion? It is $ 40
million still significant amount. The lobby behind this propaganda needs to
identified.

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callmeed
I started 2 Coursera courses this year and completed neither. I went into them
almost like a software "trial". It cost me nothing so I lost nothing. Both
courses were interesting but it came down to time and opportunity cost.

------
primitivesuave
From the perspective of someone in the education space (the physical kind of
education involving classrooms and face-to-face conversations), human contact
is essential in education. My favorite classes from college were taught by
interesting people whose personality and real-world insight gave me a far
greater appreciation of the subject than what I could glean from an online
video. However, this face-to-face interaction with an experienced individual
is not possible in most parts of the world, which is really where MOOCs make a
huge difference.

~~~
failrate
I'm currently enrolled in an online degree program at the University of
Illinois, and while the teachers are good and the material is interesting and
challenging, the class is fundamentally less engaging. The closest analogue I
can think of is the difference between IM and a video chat. Many conventional
college students use study groups to boost their success rates. What is
preventing an online course from using video chat or something similar to the
same end? (mandatory forums do not encourage engagement amongst students).

~~~
Pacabel
The problem with MOOC forums are that they bring together students with very
different expectations and attitudes toward education and learning.

During the courses I took, I noticed certain trends. Students with Indian-
looking names were often most concerned about the certificate of achievement
given out after the course. In each course I'd see students asking if it were
available yet well before the end of the course! I suspect that this may be
due to the high importance that Indian society today places on the possession
of credentials, even if there's insufficient knowledge and experience to back
up those credentials.

Likewise, questions about the marking scheme and grading were often coming
from students with Asian-looking names. I suspect that this is due to the high
degree of emphasis in many Asian societies that is placed upon obtaining
extremely high grades in academic studies, even if these grades don't truly
reflect understanding.

And questions asking about exact midterm or exam content tended to come from
students with Western European or American names. These societies tend to
place a lot of emphasis on getting work done with minimal effort, including
getting exam questions in advance to avoid unnecessary, from a grading
perspective, studying.

Bring together all of those students, and those types of questions can easily
take up 70% or more of the discussion. That doesn't leave much room for other
discussion. Even that discussion was usually lacking, due to many students not
having a good grasp of the course's language of instruction. Bringing together
students with different backgrounds may be a good thing, but too much
difference is just as bad as extreme uniformity, if not worse. At least in the
case of uniformity there is the similarity that the students have in common.

\- Pacabel

~~~
primitivesuave
This is an incredibly astute observation, although I've seen the most flagrant
forms of cheating/avarice from Indian and Asian students who are simply trying
to avoid studying. Asian and Indian society instills a much stronger desire to
succeed on paper than intellectually, and I observed this when TA'ing for a CS
class comprised primarily of international students. Throughout the semester I
was getting 10 - 30 emails a day regarding petty grading/exam issues, with the
occasional email from someone asking a real question.

