(2017-10-12) Udacity Official Declares Moocs Deadthough The Company Still Offers Them

Udacity Official Declares MOOCs ‘Dead’ (Though the Company Still Offers Them) - EdSurge News

It was Udacity vice president Clarissa Shen who this week said “they are dead,” when talking about MOOCs in an interview with The Economic Times in India. “MOOCs are a failed product, at least for the goals we had set for ourselves,” she told the newspaper. “Our mission is to bring relevant education which advances people in careers and socio-economic activities, and MOOCs aren't the way.”

Udacity’s co-founder, Sebastian Thrun, famously announced a “pivot” away from MOOCs back in 2013, and since then the company has focused its energies on paid sequences of courses called “nanodegrees” (Badge) that it produces in cooperation with large tech employers. But it has continued to offer free versions of its course videos for those who don’t want or need a certificate of completion.

Shen stressed that the problem with the old MOOC model is a focus on video libraries for teaching. She said the strength of the nanodegree program is that students are required to complete projects.

There are now over 18,000 Nanodegree graduates.