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MOOC lengths (future)
Sample of MOOCs that are about to start, showing that both the mean and mode length of MOOCs is falling fast. A good part of the reason for this is to make it more likely that people will finish them, but it also shows that people are starting to write courses whose length is determined by pedagogy and content needs rather than blind adherence to a norm.
Jon Dron
still learning, never learning enough
Comments
I know I sound cynical - but my first instinct is that this is unlikely to drive acceptance by the established schools. On the other hand, we have just switched to 14 week semesters, delivered in a 7-1-7 block (the single week is a reading/project week). We are somewhat working towards a 7 week delivery model - but I think the idea is to compress 14 weeks of delivery into 7 weeks - so the total number of hours doesn't change.
Just to be completely sure I understand the graph - course length is in the x-axis?
Yes, the x axis is number of weeks.
Not cynical at all - quite realistic. I posted this as part of a blog post that I've been too busy lately to finish (coming very soon) which makes a similar point, that formal ed is driven by an assortment of forces that inevitably gravitate to a particular and counter-educational fixed size. I think the really interesting thing that the current trend in MOOCs is showing is that this is crazy and has to change!