Study of MOOCs offers insights into online learner engagement and behavior
The following is a joint announcement from MIT and Harvard University. In 2012, MIT and Harvard University launched open online courses on edX, a non-profit learning platform co-founded by the two institutions. Four years later, what have we learned about these online “classrooms” and the global community of learners who take them? Today, a joint research team from MIT and Harvard announced the release of a comprehensive report on learner engagement and behavior in 290 massive open online courses (MOOCs). Building on their prior work — 2014 and 2015 benchmark reports describing their first two years of open online courses — the team’s new study reviews four years of data and represents one of the largest surveys of MOOCs to date. "Strong collaboration has enabled MIT and Harvard researchers to jointly examine nearly 30 million hours of online learner behavior and the growth of the MOOC space," says study co-author Isaac Chuang, MIT senior...