This has been an exciting week for the Center for Instructional Technology. Duke’s first Coursera MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), “Bioelectricity: A Quantitative Approach” launched yesterday! All of us are pleased at the size and diversity of the learning community, and as the instructor Dr. Roger Barr recently said “…it is exciting to think about there being so many students, so many faces, so many places, all with a shared interest.” Many students have jumped in with both feet, and the course discussion boards are already lively, with over 400 posts in the past 24 hours. Virtual and in-person study groups are forming (both within the course site and outside of it), and many of the active students so far have expressed praise for the quality of the course.
Based on student responses to a ‘Getting to Know You’ survey prior to launch, 2/3 of the students are outside of the United States, and over 100 countries are represented. Just to provide a snapshot of how much is happening, here are a few quick numbers about the course since its launch on Sept 24, 2012.
o Active students vs total enrollment : 4779 (42%) out of 11,330
o Who’ve watched or downloaded video: 3174 (66% of active students)
o Who have taken a quiz: 631
o Who have posted to the discussion forums: 282
Minutes of published video in the first week of the course: 82
Most upvoted thread on the discussion forums so far: “Appreciation Thread; Thanks, Prof. Barr!”
New students who enrolled while I was writing this blog post: 11
For more information on Duke’s online courses, click here: https://onlinecourses.duke.edu/.