Coursera President Daphne Koller: 2014 Is The Year MOOCs Will Come Of Age - Alex Wilhelm, Tech Crunch

At Disrupt SF, Coursera’s president Daphne Koller pushed back against the notion that her company is a for-profit education company: In her view, Coursera is instead a for-profit technology company. TechCrunch’s Frederic Lardinois pressed Koller on the completion rates the average class on her platform sees — only 5 percent of people that enroll in a future class finish the course. Koller wasn’t perturbed. According to her numbers, of the people who actually want to finish the course, 70 percent do so, a number that she said was high for “an online activity.” The company does have the figures in mind, it seems, as it is moving towards more self-directed learning, and classes that have less rigid — and distant — start dates. Koller indicated that if a class starts within a week of a student enrolling — compared to its current model — engagement doubles. http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/10/coursera-president-daphne-koller-2014-is-the-year-moocs-will-come-of-age/