Coursera, an upstart company working with selective universities to offer free online courses, announced this week that it had reached one million registered students. A rival company, Udacity, which also offers what have become known as Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOC’s, says it has more than 739,000 students. The numbers, however, are more symbolic of interest in free online courses than indicative of the amount of learning taking place. For instance, a co-founder of Coursera, Andrew Ng, noted in an e-mail interview that the number of active students is significantly lower because many registrations are for courses that have not yet begun. And many people sign up for the free courses but don’t end up following through by doing the coursework.
http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/coursera-hits-1-million-students-with-udacity-close-behind/38801
