Open2Study Media | 28 October 2013
In just six months, Open Universities Australia has reached 100,000 enrolments in its free online learning platform with 53,000 students from more than 180 countries undertaking one or more of its massive open online courses, or MOOCs.
Open2Study began by offering 10 free subjects in April, with each taking four weeks to complete.
The platform currently offers 32 courses with Principles of Project Management, Food, Nutrition & Your Health, Writing for the Web, User Experience for the Web and Strategic Management attracting the highest enrolments.
With new subjects added almost every month, the Open2Study team expects to have up to 50 free subjects available by the end of 2013.
OUA Chief Executive Paul Wappett notes that the major challenge for MOOCs and free online education is that despite attracting mass volumes of students, most people fail to complete the course and therefore do not achieve the learning objectives. However, one of the successes of Open2Study is that one in four students completing their studies, showing that Open2Study is “delivering an outstanding experience compared to other free online education platforms.”
…we attribute our early success to the academic quality of our subjects, high production values and, most importantly, our learning, teaching and assessment model which is designed with the online student in mind.
Wappett said the Open2Study platform also enforced a high quality, consistent learning experience for students and that quality control was proving to be “very advantageous”.
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