Registrations for a WUR course have tripled. WUR got on the MOOC bandwagon five years ago and now there are 43 WUR courses available in this Massive Open Online Course form on the EdX platform. The one millionth participant in a WUR course registered recently. And the boom continues: the number of registrations is two or three times what it was before the coronavirus. The enforced switch to online education has lowered the bar for starting on a MOOC.
Alternative
Some of the new recruits are a result of last spring’s decision by a large number of universities that are active on EdX to make their courses available entirely free for each other’s students and staff. The initiative was inspired by the corona crisis and the need to offer good online alternatives to classes on campus. It brought WUR an additional 8000 course participants. And about 1000 people from WUR took a MOOC elsewhere.
Finishing the course is not the explicit aim of a MOOC
Suzanne de Bruijn, Business Developer for Lifelong Learning
Actually, only around five per cent of MOOC participants finish their course. According to Suzanne de Bruijn (Business Developer for Lifelong Learning), that needs to be seen in perspective. ‘Finishing the course is not the explicit aim of a MOOC. Sometimes people might meet their learning needs by watching just one video.’
