Analysis of data of MOOCs courses
06
Feb
Researchers studied an average of 20 gigabytes of data for each of the 17 courses offered on the 
EDX 2012-2013 platform.
The study found out that 50 percent of the students which subscribed to MOOC courses gave up within a week or two after the registration, but the attrition rates fell significantly after that. “Our results show considerable differences on all demographic variables, since gender, to age, to prior educational attainment” says Andrew Ho, professor of Harvard University, that can be read in the Campus Technology magazine.
In an interview, professor Andrew Ho discussed the recent Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) study of EDX massive open online course (MOOC) data. The project, for which Ho was useful as a link researcher, aimed to improve the understanding of how students learn and how technology can help the teaching process both online and in the classroom.
He also says MOOC course completion rates are misleading, because many registered students view the course material as Web content to surf, and learn without completing the course. Asynchronicity brings another difficulty in the interpretation of MOOC data, because students sometimes register in courses months after the certification window has closed, and thus are automatically considered as dropouts.
