Online courses trim billions in personnel training — from cnbc.com by Ellen Lee
Excerpt:
Massive online open courses (MOOCs) are supposed to change the face of higher education. Early success, though, has been easier to find among corporations.
A University of Pennsylvania survey released late last year found that few students made it past the first online lecture. That’s been a constant criticism of MOOCs from educators: There’s a lack of proof that they work as well as traditional classroom methods. San Jose State University suspended a program it had initiated with MOOC provider Udacity after poor early results.
These stumbles in the education sector haven’t stopped corporations from finding a compelling reason to embrace MOOCs: Online courses trim a bill that runs to $130 billion annually for job training and certification, according to a report by Bersin, a unit of Deloitte Consulting.
From DSC:
With the half lives of content shrinking, those organizations who are nimble, responsive to market demands, and can build/integrate new streams of content into their product offerings should prove to be successful. For example, if knowledge of 3D printing or big data is required, those organizations who can respond quickly to provide this information should do pretty well. If organizations like Coursera or Udacity can provide such content quicker, they could be the go-to players in the future — especially for lifelong learners.
Lastly, this article is a great example of why higher education & the corporate world should pay closer attention to what’s happening in each others’ worlds.