the funnel of participation: beyond dropout in moocs, informal learning and universities
DESCRIPTION
Slides for a talk at the Centre for Distance Education event, "InFocus: Learner analytics and big data", #CDEInFocus, University of London, Senate House, 10th December 2013.TRANSCRIPT
The funnel of participation:Moving beyond dropout
Doug Clow, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UK
Centre for Distance Education, University of London, 10 Dec 2013.
Aim
• To change the way you think about dropout. With a funnel.
Photo (cc) Nina Hale http://www.flickr.com/photos/94693506@N00/614751836/
Overview
• MOOC dropout• Informal learning• Funnel of participation• Universities• Improving learning
cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by Rob Sinclair: http://flickr.com/photos/rob-sinclair/6025086793/
Nuremberg funnel, 1902
Just say no!
to antediluvian, ineffective, unsophisticaed epistemologies of pedagogicalontology
MOOC dropout
futurelearn.com
• Learning analytics on MOOCs is hard:– Technical challenges– Theoretical challenges– Philosophical challenges– Resource challenges
Honeybees Apis melliferaPhoto (cc) David Goehring http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/5041997785/
Main findings of MOOC research2012:•People drop out a lot•More research required
2013:•They really do drop out a lot•It’s complicated•More research arriving
Photo (cc) jeroen bennink http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeroenbennink/2355768494/
CCK08 PLENK2010 MITx Circuits & Electronics
Coursera Software Engineering
Registered 2,200 1,641 150,000 50,000
Completed At least 16 40-60 ‘active’
7,157 3,500
Completion rate
Not definable
Not definable
7% 7%
State of the art in MOOC Completion Rates Nov 2012
Photo (cc) Seth Tisue http://www.flickr.com/photos/tisue/254308538/
http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html
MOOC Completion Rates April 2013
http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html
MOOC Completion Rates December 2013
Who counts to start with?
• Anyone who clicked ‘enroll’?• Anyone who logged in once?• Anyone who watched ≥ one video?
– Could yield >100%!Photo (cc) wales_gibbons
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9678460@N07/7462872188/
Survival analysis
informal learning
Long tail graph (cc) Chris Anderson http://www.longtail.com/about.html
it’s not a power law
iSpot Cloudworks openED
Visits 1,100,000 275,000 30,000
Unique visitors 390,000(35%)
165,000(60%)
15,500(52%)
Registrations 21,000(5%)
5,239(3%)
1,429(9%)
Contributors 9,000(43%)
1,750(33%)
198(14%)
Data from respective site launch to 7 November 2012
iSpot Cloudworks openED
Visits 1,100,000 275,000 30,000
Unique visitors 390,000(35%)
165,000(60%)
15,500(52%)
Registrations 21,000(5%)
5,239(3%)
1,429(9%)
Contributors 9,000(43%)
1,750(33%)
198(14%)
Data from respective site launch to 7 November 2012
the funnel of participation
Awareness
Interest
Desire
Purchase
the marketingfunnel
Awareness
Registration
Activity
Progress
the funnel of participation
steep drop off from one stage to the next
highly unequal participation pattern
funnel of participation = +
universities
Elite university
Mass university
Distance / open / online
universityMOOCs
Representative completion rate
~ 90% ~ 60% ~ 35%< 15%
= 1 in 7bn for 12
Photo (cc) Walt Hubis http://www.flickr.com/photos/walthubis/4346378552/
making things better
Put your thinking funnel on
• Think less about total dropout• Think more about why participation
reduces at each stage• Think about patterns of participation• Benchmark whether it’s a problem
Photo (cc) Tom Bayly http://www.flickr.com/photos/tombayly13/6006166585/
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Steve Dunleavy: http://flickr.com/photos/stevedunleavy/5142841381/
What is to be done
• Pour more in the top• Widen the funnel at each point
– Expectations– Motivation– Pinch points– Roadblocks– Interventions
• Put better in the top– Right person, right course
“retention and progression data, viewed in isolation, have limited value as measures of student success in the first year” – QAA.
Look at the data ...
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Klearchos Kapoutsis: http://flickr.com/photos/klearchos/3601801484/
… as a whole.
Doug [email protected]@open.ac.ukdougclow.org/mooc-funnel
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by David Goehring: http://flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/33413040/
http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/retention-and-intention-massive-open-online-courses-depth-0
Ng, Koller, Ko and Chen (2013.
steep drop off from one stage to the next
highly unequal participation pattern
funnel of participation = +
“We have a lousy product” – Sebastian Thrun, Udacity CEO, Nov 14, 2013 http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb
Photo (c) Fast Company & Inc 2013 Mansueto Ventures, LLC.
• http://www.open-ed.eu• Free, open, online, OER, CC BY-SA• Seven EU partners• Three presentations, 2009-2012• Joomla, email, IRC, Elluminate• Explored business models, found none