HarvardX and MITx: Two years of open online courses Fall 2012-Summer 2014
Ho, Andrew Dean · Chuang, Isaac · Reich, Justin · Coleman, Cody Austun · Whitehill, Jacob · Northcutt, Curtis G. · Williams, Joseph Jay · Hansen, John D. · Lopez, Glenn · Petersen, Rebecca
Published | March 2015 |
Journal | SSRN Electronic Journal Pages 1-37 |
ABSTRACT
What happens when well-known universities offer online courses, assessments, and certificates of completion for free? Early descriptions of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have emphasized large enrollments, low certification rates, and highly educated registrants. We use data from two years and 68 open online courses offered by Harvard University (via HarvardX) and MIT (via MITx) to broaden the scope of answers to this question. We describe trends over this two-year span, depict participant intent using comprehensive survey instruments, and chart course participation pathways using network analysis. We find that overall participation in our MOOCs remains substantial and that the average growth has been steady. We explore how diverse audiences — including explorers, teachers-as-learners, and residential students — provide opportunities to advance the principles on which HarvardX and MITx were founded: access, research, and residential education.Keywords | distance education · edX · HarvardX · higher education · · MITx · MOOC · online learning · residential learning |
Refereed | Yes |
DOI | 10.2139/ssrn.2586847 |
URL | http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2586847 |
Other information | SSRN Journal |
Export options | BibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar |
AVAILABLE FILES
Viewed by 155 distinct readers
CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS
The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.
Click a star to be the first to rate this document
▶ POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS
HarvardX and MITx: The first year of open online courses: Fall 2012-summer 2013
Ho, Andrew Dean; Reich, Justin; Nesterko, Sergiy O.; Seaton, Daniel Thomas; et al.
HarvardX and MITx are collaborative institutional efforts between Harvard University and MIT to enhance campus-based education, advance educational research, and increase access to online learning opportunities ...
Match: Ho, Andrew Dean; Chuang, Isaac; Reich, Justin; distance education; HarvardX; higher education; ; MITx; MOOC; online learning
Characterizing video use in the catalogue of MITx MOOCs
Seaton, Daniel T.; Nesterko, Sergiy; Mullaney, Tommy; Reich, Justin; et al.
Lecture videos intended to substitute or parallel the on-campus experience are a central component of nearly all current Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Recent analysis of resources used in the inaugural course ...
Match: Reich, Justin; distance education; ; MOOC; online learning
Brief report on Open Praxis figures and data (2017)
Inés Gil-Jaurena
In the first Open Praxis issue in 2018 we briefly report on some statistics and information about Open Praxis development. The report covers the period January 2013 - December 2017, with a special focus in volume 9, ...
Match: distance education; higher education; MOOC; online learning
Transforming education through open approaches. Introduction to selected papers
Gil-Jaurena, Inés
This special Open Praxis issue includes selected papers presented at the Open Education Consortium Global Conference, held in Delft (The Netherlands) on April 24-26, 2018.
Match: distance education; higher education; MOOC
Why MOOCs while dealing with large numbers of distance learners
Aydin, Cengiz Hakan
This webinar focuses on a long-time open and distance learning provider institution’s MOOCs initiative. It does not only provide an insight about the instructional, assessment, and managerial strategies but also ...
Match: distance education; higher education; MOOC
MOOCs in Europe: Overview of papers representing a collective European response on MOOCs as presented during the HOME conference in Rome November 2015
Bang, Joergen; Dalsgaard, Christian; Kjaer, Arne; O’Donovan, Maria; et al.
Table of contents
Foreword
Part 1: Regional MOOC initiatives
Building OOC layers on top of existing courses
(M)OOCs in Iceland: Language and learning communities
EduOpen network in Italy
Part 2: Role media ...
Match: distance education; higher education; MOOC
Impact of OpenCourseWare publication on higher education participation and student recruitment
Carson, Stephen; Kanchanaraksa, Sukon; Gooding, Ira; Mulder, Fred; Schuwer, Robert
The free and open publication of course materials (OpenCourseWare or OCW) was initially undertaken by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and other universities primarily to share educational resources among ...
Match: distance education; higher education; online learning
Alexander the MOOC lands
Rogers, Guy M.
Almost four months ago my EdX/WellesleyX course, “Was Alexander Great?” was launched to test three questions about online education: whether a Massive Open Online Course could be as intellectually rigorous as a ...
Match: edX; higher education; MOOC
Socioeconomic status and MOOC enrollment: Enriching demographic information with external datasets
Hansen, John; Reich, Justin
To minimize barriers to entry, massive open online course (MOOC) providers collect minimal demographic information about users. In isolation, this data is insufficient to address important questions about socioeconomic ...
Match: Reich, Justin; MOOC
The life between big data log events: Learners’ strategies to overcome challenges in MOOCs
Veletsianos, George; Reich, Justin; Pasquini, Laura A.
Big data from massive open online courses (MOOCs) have enabled researchers to examine learning processes at almost infinite levels of granularity. Yet, such data sets do not track every important element in the learning ...
Match: Reich, Justin; online learning