The paper is based on quantitative investigations of more than 300,000 students’ behavior in several large Stanford University courses offered on Coursera, one of the major MOOC platforms. It identifies five distinct types of engagement with MOOCs:
* Viewers, who primarily watch lectures but don’t hand in many assignments
* Solvers, who hand in assignments for a grade but view few if any lectures
* All-rounders, who watch most lectures and hand in most assignments, behaving more like a student in a traditional course
* Collectors, who primarily download lectures and may or may not be watching them immediately or in the future
* Bystanders, who register for a course but whose total activity is below a very low threshold
http://www.universitybusiness.com/news/study-finds-mooc-engagement-varies-offline-courses
