Online Learning: Udacity and Coursera Comparison | UnCollege

B ecause of the diminishing return on investment and rising costs of going to college, new online learning platforms have emerged recently, enabling people all over the world to take college-level classes in a wide range of subjects. These online classes differ from traditional online classes in many ways:

• there is no cost to take them
• the only requirement to enroll is an email address
• while taught by professors, they are not affiliated with any existing institution
• enrollment goes into the many thousands of students

In many ways, these classes are better than traditional college classes. Because they are online, you have much more control of their education. For instance, you have the ability to spend as much time as you need in order to gain mastery of the material. In addition, because of the large numbers of students taking these classes, it is very easy to ask and answer questions about the material in the class forums. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the professor won?t remind you when to turn in assignments or watch the lecture videos, so you have to be motivated enough to do the work by yourself.

The two largest platforms providing these types of online classes are Udacity and Coursera. Below is a comparison of the two:

	Udacity	Coursera
Founder(s)	Sebastian Thrun (left his teaching position at Stanford)	Daphne Koller, Andrew Ng (both on a leave of absence from Stanford)
Platform Description	?Down the road ? we aspire to be a complete university, offer classes in every discipline and then degrees? ? David Stavens, Udacity Co-Founder, President, COO?1	?Our goal is to broaden access to higher education for anyone with a computer and an Internet connection, not to displace existing universities? ? Koller and Ng?3
Platform Info	Serves as a job placement service working with over 400 companies?2 Not affiliated with any existing institution Classes taught by professors and industry experts Business model: Charging employers for access to high-performing students Charging for in-person certification	Partners with existing institutions to provide classes taught by professors in an online format Each student has a profile page with that connects to their other online profiles and includes a list of their Coursera classes No business model yet
Certification	4 levels of certification Minimum requirements varies from class to class $89 for proctored exam	Minimum 70% in class required Only one level of certification
Use within existing institutions	Various schools are accepting Udacity classes for credit or working with Udacity to develop classes	University of Washington, for a fee, will provide supplemental direct instruction and UW credit
Subjects covered (not an exclusive list)	CS: Python, Web Apps, HTML5, AI Math: Cryptography, Statistics Physical Science: Physics	Math, CS Physical Sciences Social Sciences, Business Humanities
Forums	Public ? no login required to view Reputation system lets students gain points and badges for asking and answering questions Professors/TAs monitor forums One central forum; no sub-forums Threads appear in chronological order ? no voting posts up or down Each student had a forum page with all their questions, answers, points, and badges	Private ? only viewable when logged in ? Voting system lets most popular/important questions float to the top Professors/TAs monitor forums Average response time: 22 min Forum divided up into sub-forums (ex. Lectures, Quizzes, Technical Issues, etc) Excellent forum search engine
Class Wiki	All classes have an editable wiki.	Some classes have an editable wiki.
Office Hours	Some classes have ?office hours? videos where the professor answers popular questions.	Some classes have ?office hours? videos where the professor answers popular questions.

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This table outlines the specifics of how Udacity and Coursera conduct their classes:

	Udacity	Coursera
Class Format	All work done in-browser All materials released at once Each unit includes: Video-quiz-video-quiz sequence Problem set Self-paced, no deadlines: Completing the final exam is the only requirement for getting a certificate Class material sometimes changes/gets additions	Some work done in-browser, some on your local machine New unit released each week Each unit includes: Set of video lectures Problem set and/or written assignments due the following week A few classes are self-paced with no certification option Length of classes: 3 to 15 weeks Offered at scheduled times Static class material
Lesson Format	Video-quiz-video-quiz sequence: ~15-20 quizzes ~30 videos, each ~1-5 min in length Translucent hand and electronic pen uses drawing and writing to explain concepts during videos No lecture slides or video of professor lecturing Each quiz and quiz solution is explained in a video Each quiz and problem set can be submitted infinitely many times No peer grading	Videos: Involve lecture slides, electronic pen on a tablet, and/or video of professor lecturing Each video is ~ 5 min ? 1 hour in length Embedded quizzes in videos Problem sets: Auto-graded Each class specifies the number of times problem sets and assignments can be taken Peer-grading: Used in humanities classes to grade essays

In the coming weeks I?ll review Udacity and Coursera in more detail, as well as other online learning platforms. In the meantime, feel free to comment below on what you think of these platforms.

This is the first in a series of guest posts by Catherine Stevens covering online education. You can check out her personal site here:?about.me/csrs?

References:
1?http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story_print.php?story_id=17832
2?http://blog.udacity.com/p/career-team.html
3?http://www.paloaltoonline.com/weekly/story_print.php?story_id=17832

Source: http://www.uncollege.org/online-learning-udacity-and-coursera-comparison/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=online-learning-udacity-and-coursera-comparison

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