MOOC-ing on Up

When it seemed like the whole educational universe had to pivot online in the spring, at least one corner of the University of Maryland was already comfortably positioned in the virtual learning world.

For the better part of a decade, UMD has been reaching learners around the globe with its slate of Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, which saw a huge spike in interest this year. During the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March through April, according to Bill Aarhus, UMD’s program manager for MOOCs, enrollment skyrocketed about 70%, and while the initial tidal wave has passed, he said, “MOOCs five months out from the shutdown are still experiencing heightened interest compared to pre-pandemic levels.”

MOOCs are online courses that are offered in both free and paid versions that are open to exponentially more students than even the biggest of lecture halls can fit—UMD estimates more than 2 million learners have enrolled since its program began in 2013. And while traditional college credits are not given, users can earn certificates that show education in skills such as data collection and analysis.

UMD has become a popular destination: Since October 2018, UMD MOOCs have appeared 16 times in monthly top 10 rankings from MOOC search engine and review website Class Central, with eight taking the top spot in subject areas such as product management and innovation and entrepreneurship.

Building off platform partnerships with Coursera and edX, the latter through the University System of Maryland, UMD will have more than 50 MOOCs this year in subjects ranging from finance to genomics to countering terrorism, and expects 300,000 enrollees.

The core MOOC customer is typically a young professional looking to build a technical skillset, Aarhus said, and whatever skepticism existed at the birth of MOOCs has gradually been dissipating, with many Fortune 500 companies now partnering with MOOC platforms for training and education purposes.

“You have major companies now understanding the value,” Aarhus said.

One of UMD’s recent innovations has been a “MicroMasters” MBA program, where students can pay $1,350 for an entire package of seven courses and, if they finish and get accepted to the traditional UMD online MBA program, they will start with 14 earned credit hours—about a quarter of what’s needed for the degree.

Completing such programs is a way to show credibility to future employers, said Judy Frels, clinical professor of marketing and assistant dean for online programs at the Robert H. Smith School of Business.

“We see people all over the world taking these courses, and they get (the material),” she said. “The questions are just as hard and the grading is just as hard (as in traditional classes).”

Beyond the impact to students, Frels said, the years that faculty have already spent creating MOOCs prepared them for the current landscape, where case studies and lectures from past courses have been successfully repurposed for regular classes now held online.

“All that hard work is now paying off in all these ways we couldn’t have anticipated,” she said.

Mike Clabough completed the MicroMasters program and credits it for helping secure a promotion to technical project manager at a fiber optics company in New Jersey. He chose the UMD MOOC as a “middle-of-the-road option” before committing to a full MBA program. Although he’s taken online courses before, he said the instruction and engagement of UMD’s MOOCs were superior to its online learning predecessors.

“It has definitely come a long way,” Clabough said. “It brings the weight and the reputation (of a university) with it.”