2016 MOOC Provider Roundup: Coursera Back on Top

One year ago I published a post entitled "2015 MOOC Provider Roundup: Has edX Dethroned Coursera?" ranking the top 5 free online course providers on 5 key factors: website user experience, quality of instruction and course materials, amount and depth of content, community interaction and special features. Last year edX edged Coursera thanks to its consistently high quality content and Coursera's eroding course depth at the hands of monetization, while Udacity remained slightly behind due to its narrow content focus and poor forums. A year later, shortened courses and monetization in the form of paid certificates and "mini-degrees" are the new norm. In the new MOOC landscape, the free content that launched the MOOC renaissance still shines, but its light is dulled by the shadow of ever-encroaching paywalls. The platform that finds the right balance between high quality free content and sustainability will lead MOOC industry going forward. But the question remains: which platform is the best right now?

#1

Coursera is still the largest of the "big 3" MOOC providers, expanding its catalog from 795 courses last year to 1,664 at the start of 2016. Although many of the old, archived courses run infrequently, newer courses run on regular schedules that accept new cohorts of students every few weeks. Once you join a cohort, you have access to all the course materials after the course launches, so the new courses are a sort of hybrid between traditional session-based courses and self-paced ones. Coursera has also greatly expanded its specialization track offerings from just a handful to over 80 in the past year. It should be noted that some of these specialization tracks are simply recycled, broken-up versions of Coursera's older session-based courses.

Despite Coursera's big push to monetize through specializations, all of the courses I have seen remain free to audit. With its new wave of content, Coursera started to put quizzes and assignments on select courses behind paywalls, causing an uproar among students. The backlash seems to have prompted Coursera to remove the paywalls for the time being. While superficial assessments like quizzes and tests are nice, they aren't vital to learning, but if core learning materials like programming assignments or lectures are placed behind paywalls, it may be the death knell of free education on Coursera.

The Coursera website got a complete overhaul to go along with its new course format and specializations. The new interface is cleaner, more modern and easier to navigate, but those accustomed to the old site may find the change jarring. The course catalog and search functionality have been simplified, making it easier to search by subject area, although Coursera strongly promotes specialization tracks over individual courses. The forums are active in first-run courses but the shift from infrequently offered session-based courses with weekly schedules to cohort-based self-paced courses means fewer students are working on the same content at the same time, which makes it harder to get useful forum responses--a problem that will only get worse as courses age. That said, the changes are largely positive and the injection of new content has revitalized the site.

Bottom line: Coursera's revamped course structure, website and explosion of new specializations put it back at the head of the pack, but variable course quality and looming paywalls remain concerns.

Ratings (1=poor, 2=fair, 3=good, 4=very good, 5= excellent):

Website User Experience	Quality of Instruction	Amount and Depth of Content	Community Interaction and Support	Certificates, Career Services and Other Features	Total Score
4	4	4	4	4	20

#2

edX has continued its rapid growth over the past year, expanding its course catalog of 426 to 814. edX recently stopped offering free course certificates and is beginning to produce pay-only professional education courses. It is also launching several "Xseries" programs: batches of courses focused on the same subject that lead to an "XSeries Certificate" similar to Coursera's specializations and Udacity's nanodegrees. It is disappointing to see edX, the one nonprofit of the big 3, take such a sharp turn toward monetization, but it seems to be playing catch up to achieve sustainability.


The university-style courses on edX are as good as ever, but the catalog is becoming increasingly littered with courses focused on high-demand tech skills and professional training produced by strategic partners like Microsoft. This is not a bad thing per se, but average course quality has fallen slightly and it has become harder to judge what a course will be like before diving in.

The edX website itself is mostly unchanged since last year. It has a sleek, clean interface, course content is easy to navigate and course progress is easier to track than it is on other platforms. The lists of your completed, current and upcoming courses are still jumbled together in the same page and the forums remain lackluster, prompting some courses opt for external forums.

Bottom line: edX has outstanding university-style courses, but rapid expansion has led to some sub-par offerings and pay-only courses are a turn-off.

Website User Experience	Quality of Instruction	Amount and Depth of Content	Community Interaction and Support	Certificates, Career Services and Other Features	Total Score
4	4	5	3	3	19

#3

Udacity's course catalog has doubled from 55 to 110 since last year and the platform continues to emphasize practical skills in high-demand tech fields like web and mobile development. Many of Udacity's new courses are produced in conjunction with strategic partners in tech industry, particularly Google.

Udacity continues to focus on monetization through a monthly subscription model and "nanodegrees." A $200 monthly subscription grants unlimited access to premium features such as personal coaching and assignment grading as well as the chance to earn a nanodegree by completing several courses in the same subject area. Udacity currently offers 13 nanodegrees, including "full stack web developer", "Android developer" and "machine learning engineer." Given Udacity's impressive list of strategic partners, it seems well-positioned to help promising students advance in their chosen fields, particularly in web and mobile development. Course video content remains free, although certain assignments, projects and other premium features require a subscription.

Udacity's web interface hasn't changed much since last year. Courses still suffer from relatively long loading times, which is somewhat forgivable given the highly interactive construction of the content. Udacity's forums remain a ghost town; you'll need a subscription if you want any sort of personal interaction or feedback.

Bottom line: Udacity is a compelling platform for learning tech skills, but the forums are empty and you need a subscription to get the full experience.

Website User Experience	Quality of Instruction	Amount and Depth of Content	Community Interaction and Support	Certificates, Career Services and Other Features	Total Score
3	4	4	2	4	17

#4

Khan Academy is an online learning portal built by MIT and Harvard Business Grad Salaman Khan. The site's motto, "For free. For everyone. Forever.", encapsulates its effort to bring high quality free education to everyone, with a focus on  a younger demographic than the other top MOOC platforms. Many courses cover concepts students can expect to encounter in high school, middle school and grade school. Khan academy continues to expand its content with materials offered by university and institutional partners as well as sections devoted to test preparation, college admissions and computer programming. Khan is a good teacher but he can't do everything himself; thankfully, he has started enlisting the help of other educators to produce content that might fall outside his areas of expertise.

The best part about Khan Academy site remains the huge number of high quality, interactive math exercises and a progress tracking system that helps students work toward mastery of math from basic arithmetic to calculus. The site also continues to add to its nice badge and point system that rewards users for watching videos and completed exercises.

The Khan Academy website has seen a few minor tweaks over the past year, but it remains intuitive and responsive. Course materials are organized by subject area and are all easily accessible from a single menu. Unlike the "Big 3" MOOC platforms, all of the content on Khan academy is free and will likely remain that way given its mission.

Bottom Line: Khan Academy is a great place for kids to learn and for adults to brush up and its commitment to free content is refreshing amid a flurry of monetization efforts by other platforms.

Website User Experience	Quality of Instruction	Amount and Depth of Content	Community Interaction and Support	Certificates, Career Services and Other Features	Total Score
4	4	3	2	4	17

#5

MIT OpenCourseWare remains the dinosaur of online education. It’s old, enormous and parts that you wish were there are often missing. MIT OCW's catalog of over 2,300 free courses continues to grow and while some new courses offer interactive features, many are missing key content like assignments, solutions, texts or even lecture videos. The bar set by modern MOOC platforms is unrealistically high for OCW, which is more of a course archive than an interactive, evolving product.

The OCW website has changed little over the past year and remains clean and reasonably responsive. The course search functions work well and let you find courses by subject area, department or course number and filter results by various features like whether the course has lecture videos or online texts available. OCW has never offered much in the way of interactivity and while select new courses have some modern features, MIT's e-learning efforts appear focused on making edX a sustainable learning platform.

OCW doesn’t offer account registration so there is no personal user dashboard to keep track of your classes or forums to discuss material with other independent learners. You don’t get certificates or badges or any other sort of recognition completing courseware; on OCW, knowledge is your reward. 

Bottom Line: MIT OCW is a gold mine of high-level courseware, but you can spend a long time digging without finding exactly what you want.

Website User Experience	Quality of Instruction	Amount and Depth of Content	Community Interaction and Support	Certificates, Career Services and Other Features	Total Score
3	4	4	1	1	13