Coursera Analysis
Coursera Analysis
Coursera Analysis
Introduction of Online
Courses
Online education began in the late 1970s and
1980s.
By 2011, 30% of all U.S. higher education
students were estimated to take one online course
during a term.
The number of students taking online course
surpassed 6 million
Unlike traditional online courses which charged
fees and limited access, MOOC is supposed to be
free and can be accessed by any number of people
Introduction of MOOC
Initial MOOC
platforms
Udacity
(Sebastian
Thrun)
Coursera
(Andrew Neg,
Daphne
Koller)
edX
MIT Technology Review
hailed it as The Most
Important Education
Technology in 200 Years
COURSERA Early
Success
Raised $65 million in
funding
4.2 million registered
students
415+ courses on the
platform
Core product technology
platform
Coursera: An Introduction
Launched in April 2012 by 2
professors at the Stanford
University Koller and Ng
Business Model
Technology
Technology was developed in-house in order to provide enhanced
services such as providing intermittent quizzes during the
streaming of a video
The focus was on making it able to support high-volume traffic,
seamlessly delivering video lectures and quizzes and automating
assessment grading
They leveraged many open source and paid-for services and uses
Amazon Web Services for needs such as web storage, server
infrastructure and search functionality
The sheer volume of data based on students made analytics,
personalization and real-time analysis possible. Machine learning
used to design personalization and identify the areas where
students struggle to help them
The aim for build apps based on mobile platforms to provide
round-the-clock access
Operations
Marketing: Apart from a company blog, they spent no money
on marketing and relied on word-of-mouth to grow organically
Partnerships
Number of partners: 83 across 16 countries
The calibre of Courseras partners gave its credibility and respect in the
higher education circles and university presidents fretted that it would
reflect badly on them if they failed to sign on
Universities designed and produced the content and owned the IP while
Coursera provided the platform to host and stream it
After an issue with the quality of delivery with the Fundamentals of online
learning course there was more emphasis on a collaborative review of
the course material and design
Each course took about $50,000 to create and a professor spent around 100
hours on the MOOC prior to the launch and 8-10 hours/week after it was
launched
They also partnered with non-profits and universities to translate the courses
into languages and partnered with various publishers to provide digital
textbooks
Revenue Streams
Signature Track: Optional fee-based electronic certificate
provided for $30-100. It was available for courses and increasing
Some courses offered college transfer credit at institutes that
chose to accept validation by the American Council on Education
(ACE). Coursera charge an additional $60-90 on top of Signature
Track for the proctored exam
Career services was launched in Dec 2012 to provide recruiting
services. It developed a mean through which companies such as
Facebook, Twitter, etc were paired with high performing
students using analytics. Coursera received a flat fee
Company Gear: T-shirts, mugs and other company branded
gear was sold online
Coursera shared around 6 to 15% of gross revenues from the
course to the partner university. Revenue sharing with the
professor was left to the university
partners
Expanding in China and India, by understanding local requirements
Leading MOOC platform Coursera has announced it will begin charging
students to submit assignments for grading in certain courses
Increased usage of Coursera by universities to teach remedial courses to
give professors more time to focus on research
In 2014, Coursera then launched its Specialization programmes which
package three to nine courses that each range in cost between $29-$99
with prices adjusted for different locales. Eg Corporate Finance covers 7
electives covering various areas of Corporate Finance. Specialization
course fees are split 50-50 between the platform and the partner university.
Elsewhere, Specialization models have been developed to encourage full
time enrolment toward a degree. Last May, the University of Illinois
launched the iMBA. The plan lays out six Specializations that can qualify
students to enrol in six for-credit courses at the university which result in
an MBA costing around$20,000.
Funding status if $146.1 million in 6 rounds from 12 investors
COMPETITOR
ANALYSIS
UDACITY
Revenue Models :
- Providing accredited courses with degree-granting institutions for a fee
- Udacitys Career Placement Program connected qualified students directly
to these partner employers (paid for hire)
eDX
The X University is a group of university partners
Competitive Landscape
Coursera
Udacity
edX
Status
For-Profit
For-Profit
Non-Profit
Funding
$65 million
$21.1 million
$60 million
Students
5+ million
1.8 million
1.65 million
No. of
courses
532
(Broad range)
33
(Technical fields)
125
(Broad Range)
Languages
63+
Verified
certification
Available for
$30-100
Proctored
exam
certificates
Only physical
exam
certificates
Accreditaion
5 courses for
ACE credit
5 courses
Only via
licensing insti