Are MOOCs Really A Failure?

By Susan Adams. That’s what The New York Times suggested today, drawing on new research from the University of Pennsylvania. 
But as the Times also acknowledged, in some ways MOOCs (short for massive open online courses) show great promise. According to the research, conducted by Penn’s Graduate School of Education, only about half of the people who register for MOOCs even look at a single lecture, and an average of just 4% of enrollees complete the courses. 
In some classes, just 2% of students finish. The Penn research tracked 1 million students of 16 MOOCs offered by Penn professors through a for-profit company called Coursera. More...