FutureLearn’s 2019: Year in Review
In 2019, FutureLearn received £50M ($65M) in funding and launched Unlimited, an annual subscription for its entire catalog. The total number of learners on FutureLearn’s platform grew to over 10 million, up from 8.7 million in 2018. On average, each learner has enrolled in 2.5 courses. 35 million comments have been posted on FutureLearn since…
MOOCWatch 21: China vs the World
With one of our newest recruits being based in China, we are now able to share an insider’s perspective on the development of MOOCs in one of the world’s most influential nations. And it seems that MOOCs are as big in China as they are in the rest of the world combined. According to China’s…
Coursera’s 2019: Year in Review
In 2019, Coursera achieved the coveted unicorn status — that is, it reached a valuation of over $1B after raising $103M in a Series E round. The total number of registered learners on the platform grew from 37 million to 45 million, allowing Coursera to remain the world’s largest MOOC provider by a significant margin.…
EdX’s 2019: Year in Review
In 2019, edX got a new co-CEO, gained more learners than in 2018, and a couple of the platform’s instructors won a Nobel prize. The total number of learners on edX grew to 24 million, up from 18 million last year. Before that, edX was gaining 4 million learners a year. As usual, edX launched…
FutureLearn Signs Up Ten Million Learners
In December 2012, eleven British universities joined with the Open University to launch a British-based MOOC provider: FutureLearn. The first courses, from 23 founding universities, appeared in October 2013. My first FutureLearn course was Start Writing Fiction in late 2014, when FutureLearn had fewer than 700,000 learners. The one million learners milestone was reached in…
The Emergence of China’s Nationally-Recognized MOOCs
China MOOC Conference: MOOC team receiving award MOOCs took off in China in 2013 with the launch of XuetangX, China’s first MOOC platform, which was developed by Tsinghua University. Six years later, China offers over 12,500 MOOCs across more than 10 MOOC platforms. In July 2017, China’s Ministry of Education announced an initiative to recognize…
By The Numbers: MOOCs in 2019
Now in its eighth year, the modern MOOC movement has reached 110 million learners, excluding China1. In 2019, providers launched over 2,500 courses, 11 online degrees, and 170 microcredentials. Here’s how the top-5 MOOC providers look like in terms of users and offerings: Learners Courses Microcredentials Degrees Coursera 45 million 3,800 420 16 edX 25…
35+ Legit Master’s Degrees You Can Now Earn Completely Online
Starting several years ago, massive open online course (MOOC) providers began releasing online degree programs, in partnership with universities. This trend started out slowly, but has been gaining momentum. The first MOOC-based degree, the Online Master of Science in Computer Science (OMSCS) from Georgia Tech and Udacity, was announced back in 2013. It took two…
IEEE Learning with MOOCs VI: Meeting the People who Make the MOOCs
I was a first time attendee at the sixth iteration of IEEE’s Learning with MOOCs conference held in October 2019 at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I was there representing Esri and its MOOC Program, which I manage. (Why does a private software company offer MOOCs? I answered that question earlier…
Class Central: 8 Years in the Making
Class Central just turned eight! This site started out as a side project that I built for myself and launched over Thanksgiving weekend back in 2011. Over the years, it continued to grow. In 2019, we expanded the team, refreshed the entire site, spoke at multiple international events, and even published a paper in an…
