Dive Summary:
- Coursera is looking to utilize its "power users"--people like 25-year-old Belgian grad student Nils De Jonghe, who has registered for 32 courses since Spring--as "community TAs."
- The qualifications and administrative privileges of the "community TA" designation are still being felt out, but one model that has been employed is the selection of high-performing participants who had also been highly active on the forums during previous iterations of a course.
- By giving these users perks like a special icon next to their forum posts and a direct line to Coursera's administrative team, the MOOC provider hopes to give them a sense of contribution and the feeling that they've had a hand in building the company.
From the article:
Nils De Jonghe is a busy student these days. Since the spring he has registered for 32 courses, the equivalent of a typical bachelor's degree, and he aims to have completed nearly all of them by the end of next summer. And he is not receiving formal credit for any of them. In the world of MOOCs (massive open online courses) De Jonghe, 25, is what techies might call a "power user." The Belgian grad student, who is also working on his thesis for a master's degree in communication sciences at the University of Ghent, has completed four MOOCs so far. ...