Dive Brief:
- The days of the 12-weeks-or-longer course will soon be a thing of the past, according to Coursera co-founder Andrew Ng.
- Statistics from the MOOC provider show a strong preference for six-week courses.
- Ng says that shortening the length of a course facilitates "window-shopping" students, who may not stick around after they check out a lecture, and reduces the likelihood that life will get in the way of completing the course.
Dive Insight:
While Ng may have a point about compact classes working best for the Web—where tons of information is already condensed, anyway—it's a tougher sell applied to face-to-face courses. It will be interesting to see whether or not the shorter course model becomes the standard for online learning and what implications it has for higher ed at large.