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Comment by sown | Hacker News Reader

> the shockingly low number of students who actually finish the classes, which is fewer than 10%. Not all of those people received a passing grade, either, meaning that for every 100 pupils who enrolled in a free course, something like five actually learned the topic.

That's still thousands (tens or hundreds) of students who passed. So perhaps the 'click-through' rate for MOOC is the same as it is for ads?

I feel Professor Thrun's work has had a positive impact on my work, even though I'm one of the students who didn't pass on time. I gradually worked my way through the material while riding the Caltrain and have a greater understanding of ML and AI topics. So it's not a total wash.

Also, by admitting he may not have been right publicly he disarms critics overall. Smart.

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Personally, I have signed up for maybe 50 MOOCs, but only completed 2, and really engaged in any level with maybe 3-5. But this was intentional. Signing up lets me:

1) Access the videos/materials for all time (even when the course is no longer open).

2) Try out different courses / professors

3) Learn the basics (i.e., watch only week 1 out of 6); or perhaps watch all videos but ignore the testing materials. After all, if there is no real credential involved, I might only care about gaining an understanding of the subject, rather than prove I understand it through testing.

I am a full time student (not in CS), and in addition to my real life course load I am currently taking Networking, Cryptography, and Algorithms. There is no way I will have the time to complete more than 1, or MAYBE 2, of the 3.

In other words, I view my low completion rate as a huge success. Coursera seems to have realized this fact. They have just started doing pre-course surveys that ask you how many videos you intend to watch (none, 25%, 50%, all), and they ask how much of the homework you intend to do.

Of course, offering degrees or college credit, especially in exchange for cash, will obviously increase completion rates, but mainly by dissuading people like me from signing up.

I am pretty sure that if most MOOCs would offer a demo of the first few week courses without having to sign "officially", the attrition rate would be much lower.

I see plenty of interesting courses on Coursera, but the one page + one video description is not enough to understand how the course will feel like and if I want to commit few hours of my life to follow it.

I always hesitate to sign because I have the feeling that by signing, I take a solemn oath that I will finish the course... (so at least I am not contributing to the bad metrics, but I feel like the metrics is skewed for wrong reasons anyway)

I'm not sure I agree. If the course is interesting, I will sign up anyway, while still not completing it. That is, unless I can access the content without signing up, but that does not seem to be common.

I think the real problem is that MOOCs are not brick and mortar schools, and any attempts to mirror a brick and mortar school will only detract value from the offerings. I don't sign up to do homework or take tests, I sign up to learn something. I will then take what I learned and apply it to something practical in my own life. If successful, it proves to me that I understand the content well enough to accomplish what I set out to achieve. I don't feel the need to prove that to anyone else. A certificate of achievement hanging on my wall means nothing.

Of course, the real issue here is that the business model was based on the idea of selling graduates to interested industry partners. If I don't successfully complete the tests, I'm not valuable to them.

I've finished about a dozen MOOCs, even TA'ed a couple and my story is similar. I'm usually enrolled in at least three courses with no intention of finishing all of them.

If I remember correctly we called it "audit a class". Visit lectures without actually taking the course for credit.

Agreed. I took 90% of the AI Udacity class and it completely changed my thinking on many things. I didn't "finish" it though, but it's impact has been very large on my career thus far (and I'm really trying to not be hyperbolic). At the very least, he gave me confidence. He's very good about that.

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