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MOOC Completion Rates: The Data

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Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have the potential to enable free university-level education on an enormous scale. A concern often raised about MOOCs is that although thousands enrol for courses, a very small proportion actually complete the course. The release of information about enrollment and completion rates from MOOCs appears to be ad hoc at the moment - that is, official statistics are not published for every course. This data visualisation draws together information about enrollment numbers and completion rates from across online news stories and blogs.
  • To switch between charts showing completion rate plotted against total enrollment, or length of course, or to view all the data as a table, click on the links above the chart.
  • How big is the typical MOOC? - while enrollment has reached up to ~230,000, 25,000 students enrolled is a much more typical MOOC size.
  • How many students complete courses? - completion rates can approach 40% (and occasionally exceed it), the current average completion rate for MOOCs is approximately 15%.
  • Clicking on data points on the chart will display further details about each course, including a link to the data source.
  • 'Completion rate' is typically defined as the number who earned a certificate of completion or 'passed' the course but there is some variation in the data - you can filter according to different criteria at the top right.

Data notes

This course ran at , from for weeks. (%) completed the course out of a total of students enrolled on the course.

Link to data source.