Breaking the curse of the xMOOC

Ok, before everyone becomes over excited. I do not think we have solved it yet - however, we have made some interesting in roads into rethinking the xMOOC model. As it stands, if you manage a retention of greater than 5% on a MOOC. You get a post launch party budget and a visit from someone somewhat more senior and often disbelieving.

As, you may have gathers from my many posts - we are offering an xMOOC for teachers via the Cisco Netacad community. Using a combination of Netacad, Facebook and other tools - the aim is to up skill teachers in computer hardware and network engineering principles.

However, since the first run, we have seen retention operating in the region of 18 to 20%. While unfinished, we are seeing a retention of around 23 to 35% (depending on which census point you use).

As you may have guessed - we are freaking out (and why not).

So - before you think that we may have come up with magic formulae. The populations are marginally smaller. We are looking at over a thousand, not tens of thousands. Also - the subject and cohort are niche - focussed on teachers, focussing on topics to become accredited to teach. Therefore the motivation is greater and the participation is self selective and pre-selecting.

Still - we are impressed to see how we have moved in terms of participation and retention. In a small way, we may have broken the curse of the xMOOCs.