My MOOC: Some further thoughts

   As I write, I'm continuing to learn about infographics and data visualization as a student enrolled in a MOOC hosted by the Knight School of Journalism, University of Texas. I posted earlier that this course had met my expectations; it is soundly structured, administered with care and most importantly, has provided the tools to learn quite a bit about infographics and data visualization. 

   Last week, we were given a data set to work with that had been generated by KPMG, a global accounting firm.  The data compared tax rates (and several sub-sets of tax rates) among the world's nations. Our job was to create a visualization of the data that helped a viewer understand the numbers.  Here's my project: Tax Rates and Standards of Living Though it's fairly clear how this graphic should be interactive, right now it is not interactive.  I've been learning a bit about Tableau and Adobe Illustrator, two software packages that can be used to create interactive graphics, but there's a lot to learn.  I'm still some distance from producing fully interactive graphics.

   As an enrolled student, I have a perfect opportunity to learn more about how MOOCs work. I asked our professor about attrition rates, and he mentioned that 15% of the enrolled students finished his last MOOC. He was quite happy with that number. Apparently, it's noticeably above average. Another notable characteristic is the international make-up of the enrolled students. I don't have hard numbers, but from the forums that have been created, it is very obvious that there are students from around the world and they bring a wide range of life experiences to the class. Even given that "conversations" are held entirely online, I do feel I have gained from the exposure to this wide range of peers.

   There's quite a body of literature that has been created over the last years as people critique, support and evaluate MOOCs. As a regular reader of The Chronicle of Higher Education, I know that MOOCs have been a continuing topic of interest. I read an article over the week-end and thought that it did a fine job reminding readers that for a great many currently enrolled college students in the U.S., new models of higher education are welcome, and even needed: Your Massively Open Offline College Is Broken  As presented in the article, facts about costs, enrollment and job prospects combine to make a compelling case for MOOCs and other education models that are cheaper, more responsive to shifting job markets and more flexible in how coursework is offered.