Much Ado About MOOCs: Where Are We in the Evolution of Online Courses? | EdSurge News

"A lot has changed since 2012 or, the year the New York Times dubbed the "Year of the MOOC." The premise back then was that classes would make high-quality online education accessible for all—and for free. Today, many MOOC providers now charge a fee. They’ve rolled out bundles of courses called ‘Specializations’ or ‘Nanodegrees.’ And popular providers like Coursera and edX are increasingly partnering with colleges and universities to offer MOOC-based degrees online.

So, seven years after the “Year of the MOOC,” we’re wondering: Where are these courses and companies today? And how are universities responding?...

Last year, the number of learners who had taken at least one MOOC crossed 100 million, but the number of learners added was just 20 million, which was less than 23 million for the last two years. So the rate at which new users are coming into the MOOC space is decreasing.

The number of courses has been growing steadily at the same rate now. We have more than 11,000 courses from 900 universities. As for the MOOC providers, Coursera is the biggest one—with the most revenue and the most number of users, and also the most number of employees. Udacity ended 2017 with 500 employees, but they had layoffs, and ended 2018 with 330 employees...."