MIT and Harvard University today announced the release of a series of working papers based on 17 online courses offered on the edX platform. Run in 2012 and 2013, the courses analyzed drew upon diverse topics — from ancient Greek poetry to electromagnetism — and an array of disciplines, from public health to engineering to law.
The working paper series features detailed reports about individual courses; these reports reveal differences and commonalities among massive open online courses (MOOCs). In the coming weeks, data sets and interactive visualization tools will also be made available.
Led by Isaac Chuang, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and Andrew Ho, an associate professor in Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, the collaborative research effort was in service of a mutual goal — “to research how students learn and how technologies can facilitate effective teaching both on-campus and online” — part of a mission statement established when MIT and Harvard joined to form edX, the not-for-profit online learning platform, in May 2012.
The papers analyze an average of 20 gigabytes of data per course and draw on interviews with faculty and course teams as well as student metrics.
Key takeaways
Takeaway 1: Course completion rates, often seen as a bellwether for MOOCs, can be misleading and may at times be counterproductive indicators of the impact and potential of open online courses.
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New
Courses
- 3.024
Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Properties of Materials
- 7.346
DNA Wars: How the Cell Strikes Back to Avoid Disease after Attacks on DNA
- 21W.758
Genre Fiction Workshop
- ES.S60
The Art and Science of Happiness
- WGS.115
Gender and Technology
- WGS.S10
Reproductive Politics in the United States
Updated
Courses
- 4.241J
Theory of City Form
- 6.851
Advanced Data Structures
- 8.07
Electromagnetism II
- 9.17
Systems Neuroscience Lab
- 11.308J
Advanced Seminar: Urban Nature and City Design
- 21M.030
Introduction to World Music
- 21W.742
Writing About Race
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