Affordable Degrees at Scale: New Phenomenon or New Hype?
summary
Researchers assemble 38 MOOC-based master's and a comparison set of 163 non-MOOC master's programs, inventorying 624 courses and finding only about half of syllabi available and only half of those complete. Tuition distributions overlap heavily so price is not distinctive; admissions commonly demand a four‑year bachelor and often a GPA ≈3.0, with some programs using conditional admission via microcredentials. Course design mirrors traditional online degrees: project- and human‑graded assessments, group projects, STEM auto‑grading, and business portfolios.
AI-written summary · about
chapters (12)
- 0:00Start
- 2:42Methodology
- 2:59Program Selection - MOOC based programs 61 Total programs identified through MOOC partners
- 3:43Program Selection - non MOOC based programs 354 Total programs identified by searching for universities with online options
- 4:33Schools with non MOOC based programs These are the list of schools which were selected as part of non MOOC based programs
- 5:12Analysis
- 5:54Results: Tuition
- 6:29Results: Admissions
- 8:06Results: Syllabi
- 9:39Limitations
- 10:06Conclusion: Six Observations
- 12:44Questions
related talks
18mHow Data Science Can Unlock Teaching & Learning at Scale
48mGlobal Data Science Masters and Career Opportunities in USA, Canada and Europe
02mBuilding data science capacity in your org
45mConsumer Protection in an Online World: An Analysis of Occupational Licensing
43mTechnology, Management, Data : Choosing what and how to learn
09mEmily Glassberg Sands, Coursera | Stanford Women in Data Science (WiDS) Conference 2020
46mData Science Training in Communities with Limited Technology Resources
11mSpotlight Session