Some interesting details on Coursera today:
- 6 million users, 108 partners (universities and training organizations), team size of 80, 550 courses
- revenue mostly from signature trek courses (ASP of $50)
- overall completion rate low (<5%), vs. higher completion rate for sig trek users (60%+)
- course instructors are suggested to budget ~400 hours to construct a course
- largest MOOC now (in terms of #users) and largest collection of education data
- many A-B tests done, on email communication, video format, grading, etc.
- feedback mechanisms include: multiple choice, peer grading, machine grading (numeric probs)
- signature trek homework verification: web cam and typing pattern. The participating institutes share revenue
- international expansion: Chinese now (through NetEase, a local partner that helps host content in China), and French / Spanish to come
Coursera team also has deep social root - the motto is to do what's good for students and it rolled out a financial aid program when starting the sig trek program. When asked about why Coursera is a for-profit company, the founder said that it was mostly due to funding. It managed only to raise $150k when it was trying to be a non-profit, vs. tens of millions as a for-profit.
What's really interesting about Coursera is its data on people's learning habits. So far, Coursera is only utilizing a small tip of the data, and conducting analyses on the surface. There is certainly huge potential in the future.
- 6 million users, 108 partners (universities and training organizations), team size of 80, 550 courses
- revenue mostly from signature trek courses (ASP of $50)
- overall completion rate low (<5%), vs. higher completion rate for sig trek users (60%+)
- course instructors are suggested to budget ~400 hours to construct a course
- largest MOOC now (in terms of #users) and largest collection of education data
- many A-B tests done, on email communication, video format, grading, etc.
- feedback mechanisms include: multiple choice, peer grading, machine grading (numeric probs)
- signature trek homework verification: web cam and typing pattern. The participating institutes share revenue
- international expansion: Chinese now (through NetEase, a local partner that helps host content in China), and French / Spanish to come
Coursera team also has deep social root - the motto is to do what's good for students and it rolled out a financial aid program when starting the sig trek program. When asked about why Coursera is a for-profit company, the founder said that it was mostly due to funding. It managed only to raise $150k when it was trying to be a non-profit, vs. tens of millions as a for-profit.
What's really interesting about Coursera is its data on people's learning habits. So far, Coursera is only utilizing a small tip of the data, and conducting analyses on the surface. There is certainly huge potential in the future.
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