The funnel of participation:Moving beyond dropout

Doug Clow, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, UK

Centre for Distance Education, University of London, 10 Dec 2013.

Aim

• To change the way you think about dropout. With a funnel.

Photo (cc) Nina Hale http://www.flickr.com/photos/94693506@N00/614751836/

Overview

• MOOC dropout• Informal learning• Funnel of participation• Universities• Improving learning

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo by Rob Sinclair: http://flickr.com/photos/rob-sinclair/6025086793/

Nuremberg funnel, 1902

Just say no!

to antediluvian, ineffective, unsophisticaed epistemologies of pedagogicalontology

MOOC dropout

futurelearn.com

• Learning analytics on MOOCs is hard:– Technical challenges– Theoretical challenges– Philosophical challenges– Resource challenges

Honeybees Apis melliferaPhoto (cc) David Goehring http://www.flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/5041997785/

Main findings of MOOC research2012:•People drop out a lot•More research required

2013:•They really do drop out a lot•It’s complicated•More research arriving

Photo (cc) jeroen bennink http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeroenbennink/2355768494/

CCK08 PLENK2010 MITx Circuits & Electronics

Coursera Software Engineering

Registered 2,200 1,641 150,000 50,000

Completed At least 16 40-60 ‘active’

7,157 3,500

Completion rate

Not definable

Not definable

7% 7%

State of the art in MOOC Completion Rates Nov 2012

Photo (cc) Seth Tisue http://www.flickr.com/photos/tisue/254308538/

http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

MOOC Completion Rates April 2013

http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

MOOC Completion Rates December 2013

Who counts to start with?

• Anyone who clicked ‘enroll’?• Anyone who logged in once?• Anyone who watched ≥ one video?

– Could yield >100%!Photo (cc) wales_gibbons

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9678460@N07/7462872188/

Survival analysis

informal learning

Long tail graph (cc) Chris Anderson http://www.longtail.com/about.html

it’s not a power law

  iSpot Cloudworks openED

Visits 1,100,000 275,000 30,000

Unique visitors 390,000(35%)

165,000(60%)

15,500(52%)

Registrations 21,000(5%)

5,239(3%)

1,429(9%)

Contributors 9,000(43%)

1,750(33%)

198(14%)

Data from respective site launch to 7 November 2012

  iSpot Cloudworks openED

Visits 1,100,000 275,000 30,000

Unique visitors 390,000(35%)

165,000(60%)

15,500(52%)

Registrations 21,000(5%)

5,239(3%)

1,429(9%)

Contributors 9,000(43%)

1,750(33%)

198(14%)

Data from respective site launch to 7 November 2012

the funnel of participation

Awareness

Interest

Desire

Purchase

the marketingfunnel

Awareness

Registration

Activity

Progress

the funnel of participation

steep drop off from one stage to the next

highly unequal participation pattern

funnel of participation = +

universities

Elite university

Mass university

Distance / open / online

universityMOOCs

Representative completion rate

~ 90% ~ 60% ~ 35%< 15%

= 1 in 7bn for 12

Photo (cc) Walt Hubis http://www.flickr.com/photos/walthubis/4346378552/

making things better

Put your thinking funnel on

• Think less about total dropout• Think more about why participation

reduces at each stage• Think about patterns of participation• Benchmark whether it’s a problem

Photo (cc) Tom Bayly http://www.flickr.com/photos/tombayly13/6006166585/

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Steve Dunleavy: http://flickr.com/photos/stevedunleavy/5142841381/

What is to be done

• Pour more in the top• Widen the funnel at each point

– Expectations– Motivation– Pinch points– Roadblocks– Interventions

• Put better in the top– Right person, right course

“retention and progression data, viewed in isolation, have limited value as measures of student success in the first year” – QAA.

Look at the data ...

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by Klearchos Kapoutsis: http://flickr.com/photos/klearchos/3601801484/

… as a whole.

Doug Clow@dougclowdoug.clow@open.ac.ukdougclow.org/mooc-funnel

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo by David Goehring: http://flickr.com/photos/carbonnyc/33413040/

http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/retention-and-intention-massive-open-online-courses-depth-0

Ng, Koller, Ko and Chen (2013.

steep drop off from one stage to the next

highly unequal participation pattern

funnel of participation = +

“We have a lousy product” – Sebastian Thrun, Udacity CEO, Nov 14, 2013 http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb

Photo (c) Fast Company & Inc 2013 Mansueto Ventures, LLC.

• http://www.open-ed.eu• Free, open, online, OER, CC BY-SA• Seven EU partners• Three presentations, 2009-2012• Joomla, email, IRC, Elluminate• Explored business models, found none