Rethinking MOOCs: The Promises for Better Education in India

Research On Moocs

The most popular MOOCs follow the format of a traditional university course and feature lectures, assignments, start dates, and deadlines. One of the most striking characteristics of MOOC usership is a major drop out in course enrollment between initial registration and final certification, as more than 90% of participants eventually drop out (Xing et al., 2016). This statistic has been characterized as a funnel of participation (Joo et al., 2018), with students “leaking out” of a course over time (Cristea et al., 2018). High dropout rates have sparked debate about the efficacy of MOOCs as well as conversation about how to retain users over time. However, simply comparing MOOCs with traditional education or e-learning does not seem sensible either (Joksimović et al., 2018). The low signup costs and openness of MOOCs—features at their very core—mean people can more readily register as well as dropout.