Are higher education students registering and participating in MOOCs? The case of MiríadaX

Abstract

Most MOOCs offer open learning opportunities at Higher Education (HE) level./nHowever, it is still unclear how HE students are taking this type of course. This/nstudy focuses on the profile of HE students participating in MOOCs, their/nregistration, preferred topics and completion patterns and how they compare to/nother types of participants. The paper presents a descriptive analysis of the/nMiríadaX platform data up to the end of 2014, including an analysis of 144 courses/nand 191,608 participants. Results indicate that current HE students, who are/nmostly Latin American and Spainish males interested in technology subjects,/nregister for and complete lower numbers of MOOCs than participants who have/nalready completed their HE studies. HE students older than standard ages have a/nsignificant presence in MOOCs and have higher numbers of MOOC registrations/nand completitions.