2017 MOOC Provider Roundup: Are MOOCs Still Open?

A year ago I published a post entitled "2016 MOOC Provider Roundup: Coursera Back on Top" ranking 5 of the top 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. This time around, I'm going to focus on the "Big 3": Coursera, edX and Udacity. Over the past year, the Big 3 have ramped up monetization efforts, with each platform offering an array of new paid content. Finding the right business model is necessary for MOOC platforms to be sustainable, but adding admissions processes and monetization also runs the risk of taking the "open" out of "MOOC". In this year's ratings I'm adding "openness" as a new rating criterion in place of "special features" and my reviews will focus on how open the platforms feel in the face of monetization.

#1

edX is mostly unchanged since last year: it still offers a good variety of university-style courses that are generally longer and go into greater depth than courses you'll find elsewhere. It continues to monetize through paid certificate programs, but aside from a few professional training courses, you can still audit classes for free. Unlike on Coursera, you can actually access everything in a course if it is available for audit, so if you are able to register for a freeware course, you don't have to worry about whether you will have to upgrade later to complete it.


edX and Coursera are starting to feel similar in terms of user experience and the type and quality of content available. Although edX has historically offered longer courses, it is also starting to push out groups shorter courses offered as programs that feel very similar to Coursera's specializations. With both sites offering a similar level of content quality, edX edges Coursera in this year's rankings due to its greater openness for freeware students.

Bottom line: edX is building a nice catalog of shorter courses to go along with its longer university-style courses and freeware students have access to everything aside from a few professional training courses.

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	Openness	Total Score
4	4	5	2	3	18

#2

Coursera is still the largest of the "big 3" MOOC providers, although a revamped user interface and course search system make it difficult to determine just how much its catalog has grown in last year. Coursera has removed all of its old archived courses; many of the popular old courses have been broken up, repackaged and migrated over to the new system, although certain courses are simply gone. Switching everything over to the new system is probably a good decision on the whole for consistency, but losing access to course archives is a blow to long time users who may wish to review content from courses taken in the past.

Coursera continues to push to monetization through specializations and paid course certificates, but all of the courses I have seen remain free to audit, aside from capstone projects for specializations. On the other hand, many of the new courses require that you pay for a verified certificate to access certain content like graded quizzes and assignments, so you can't actually complete them as a freeware student. I personally don't mind not having access to quizzes because they are usually a just a means of assessment rather than learning, but any course that locks programming assignments is probably not worth taking as a freeware student.

Bottom line: Coursera has a huge variety of quality courses and a nice web interface, but freeware students are sometimes locked out of key content like graded quizzes and assignments.

Website User Experience	Quality of Instruction	Amount and Depth of Content	Community Interaction and Support	Openness	Total Score
4	4	4	3	2	17

#3

Udacity continues to focus on monetization through "nanodegrees", often created in partnership with companies in the industry related to the nanodgree. Program costs and admission requirements appear to vary depending on the nanodegree program; a single subscription does not appear to grant unlimited access to all content on Udacity anymore. Udacity is still releasing short beginner level courses for freeware students, which seem to be designed to get you started and direct you toward paid nanodegrees. Most of the new content on Udcaity, however, is reserved for paying students admitted to nanodegree programs, so Udacity can't really be considered a MOOC platform in the traditional sense: it has evolved into a paid technical training site.

Bottom line: Udacity has a nice catalog of old freeware programming courses, but most new content is for paying students only.

Website User Experience	Quality of Instruction	Amount and Depth of Content	Community Interaction and Support	Openness	Total Score
4	4	4	2	1	15