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What are the main challenges that must be resolved by MOOC providers and universities that develop these kinds of courses? How will evolve the creation of credentials and certificates for MOOC courses? Should universities develop a MOOC strategy? Do companies value the knowledge and skills that a person acquires through a MOOC? Growth and evolution analysis of MOOCs. Interview with Dhawal Shah - Founder of Class Central.

What do you think will be the growth and evolution analysis of MOOCs at the end of 2016?

I think 2016 will be the slowest year yet for MOOCs. Last year our analysis showed that the MOOC space had doubled, with 17 million new learners joining the MOOC platforms. At this point it doesn’t look like this number will go up this year.

One reason for this is that there is a strong push toward monetization from MOOC providers, and they are more focused on paid users than on free users. This means a majority of the new courses are career-focused, and are primarily on the topics of Technology, Business, and Data Science.

The other trend is that MOOCs are no longer “massive,” and for many courses the forums are practically dead. I wrote a detailed analysis for Venturebeat — you can find it here.

What are the main challenges that must be resolved by MOOC providers and universities that develop these kinds of courses?

I think the biggest challenge is that MOOCs are not reaching the learners who could benefit from these courses the most.

Awareness is a big part of the problem. According to a Pew Study, only 13% of American adults are “somewhat familiar” with MOOCs.

The other problem is that most of us are not used to learning on our own. That’s why many of us fail miserably when we try to learn on our own, leading to low completion rates in online courses.

MOOC providers and universities need to think beyond content, and build an ecosystem and community that motivates learners from different backgrounds.

How do you think will evolve the creation of credentials and certificates for MOOC courses?

The future of MOOCs lies in credentialing. Learners don’t like to pay for content but will pay for certificates.

So all the major MOOC providers are rushing to create credentials in different professional fields. Coursera has Specializations, Udacity has Nanodegrees, edX has xSeries, and FutureLearn has Programs.

As more and more of these credentials are available, stackable credentials will finally become a reality: learners will be able to earn these credentials from different platforms and stack them to create their own unique career path.

Should universities develop a MOOC strategy?

Yes, definitely. There are two things that we have learned over the past five years:

1. MOOCs are here to stay. According to Class Central data, more than 650 universities and colleges around the world have created MOOCs.

2. MOOCs are not a threat to the current university ecosystem.

So universities should not fear MOOCs, and should instead use them to expand their global footprint. Many universities are also using the content they’ve developed for MOOCs to improve residential education by using the flipped classroom model.

Do companies value the knowledge and skills that a person acquires through a MOOC?

Students around the world have benefited from putting MOOCs on their resume, but unfortunately we are still a long way from this being a common trend.

As I mentioned above, in general global awareness of MOOCs is low. This includes employer awareness. Also, there is also a lot of skepticism around online education.

MOOCs can be used to diversify one’s resume and to stand out from other candidates, but they can’t be the only thing used to land a new job or career. Universities have had centuries to build their brands and gain acceptance in the workplace; MOOCs have only been around for five years.

Could you tell us some details and features of Class Central?

Sure. Class Central is the most popular search engine and reviews site for free online courses and MOOCs. Currently we have over 6,000 courses listed from 650 universities around the world.

We also have around 20,000 reviews written by Class Central users, which means learners have plenty of information to decide if a course is right for them.

On top of that we have built a number of tools and services to help learners find, plan, and track their online education.

One example is our “Follow” button. Now learners can follow subjects, universities, and course providers, and every month we send them a personalized digest of new and upcoming courses based on their interests. We launched this button earlier this year and it’s been popular with our users. Soon we will cross a million follows.

The other feature I’m proud of is our “Meet Your Next Course” button on our homepage. It’s for first-time learners. It’s a step-by-step wizard: we ask learners what they are interested in, and then we generate course recommendations for them.

October 2016