MOOCs: Research Findings From First Year of edX Courses Now Available

From an Education Week Blog Post by Justin Reich (a Fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center):

My colleagues and I from HarvardX and MITx research are very pleased to announce the release of 16 working papers and course reports that summarize our research from the first full academic year of courses on edX. We have one multi-course report that summarizes findings across all of the courses.
I was the lead author for three papers that extensively explore the first two HarvardX courses from the Harvard School of Public Health,HeroesX and JusticeX. These reports combine analysis of edX platform log data, with interviews with faculty and course development teams and a close examination of course content. We also released 11 additional course reports for each of the MITx courses from 2012-2013. Finally, Terry Fisher was kind enough to re-release his appraisal of his CopyrightX course as part of our series.

From the Executive Summary of Multi-Course Report:

In the year from the fall of 2012 to the summer of 2013, the first 17 HarvardX and MITx courses launched on the edX platform.  In that year, 43,196 registrants earned certificates of completion.  Another 35,937 registrants explored half or more of course content without certification.  An additional 469,702 registrants viewed less than half of the content.  And 292,852 registrants never engaged with the online content.  In total, there were 841,687 registrations from 597,692 unique users across the first year of HarvardX and MITx courses.

Read the Complete Blog Post
Video: View Recording of Discussion With Authors of Report (Recorded Jan. 21. 2014)
See Also: Completion Rates Aren’t the Best Way to Judge MOOCs, Researchers Say (via COHE)

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