Human Learning #43 — Should MOOC platforms do undergraduate degrees?

Welcome to issue 43. The focus of this week is on the degree market. Most MOOC platforms have doubled down on Masters (edX) but FutureLearn is preparing an undergraduate degree, I look at the challenges MOOC platforms will face in this market.

My article on the challenge of MOOC platforms doing undergraduate degrees

edX

• University of Edinburgh will be the first European university to offer two online Masters (and their accompanying MicroMasters) on the edX platform — here
• Indiana University has joined edX with two Masters degrees Accounting and IT management both made available on the MicroMasters — here

Udacity

• Udacity are hosting a 2-day virtual festival — presentations, group sessions and even a chance to meet people in the real world. It’s partly about experimentation with digital (i.e. scalable) ways to support their product, like their student hub, it’s partly about fostering a community as a value add and it’s made easier by Udacity’s subject specialisation — here
• Vishal Makhijani is moving on from Udacity — Thrun credits him with scaling the company from startup to the unicorn its valued at today with operations in virtually every continent, a powerful enterprise division and a staff of 500 — here

Coursera

In a fairly random series of articles, Forbes interviewed Jeff Maggioncalda, which was useful if only for a stat dump on Coursera:

• 36m learners, $140m in revenue, $800m valuation
• Perhaps most revealing was Coursera’s loss leading exercise in userbase growth. Along with La triada, Coursera are experimenting with offering all Duke University students free access to Duke University courses. Coursera’s bet is opportunity cost (certificates given away for free) is lower than the lifetime value of prime users, it’s also a bet they can lock users into their system

Novoed was acquired by Boston-based private equity firm Devonshire for an undisclosed sum. This sounds a bit grim

YouTube’s $20m learning grants — The grant is being paid to major Education content providers such as edX and Vox as well as smaller independent providers such as Smarter Everyday. With each grant comes a responsibility for deliverables and minimum number of subscribers (25k+). The move seems to have two drivers; firstly to boost their position within the Educational market for further strategic moves e.g. subscription services and secondly as PR to counteract their allegations they’ve been a driver of fake news. — here

Southern New Hampshire University (SRNU) and LRNG merge — If you’ve never heard of either that’s fine. SRNU is a predominantly online university while LRNG is a nonprofit that focuses on pathways into work. The merger aims to create an Education giant that takes people from K-12 into the workplace. This is about employability — can university x get someone into a job. It’s another example of an online player acquiring (1) a ‘last mile’ program i.e. the part of education that leads directly to a job and (2) local networks of employers and campuses — here

Tangents

David Axelrod teams up with Karl Rove — And I wept. David Axelrod the strategist behind Obama’s 2008 campaign and Karl Rove the strategist being George W Bush’s campaign have teamed up to produce a Masterclass course in political campaigning. The two actually get on and I can’t decide if that should make me optimistic or horrified — here