The Best Online Courses of All Time
Three Georgia Tech massive open online courses are included in the newly released list
Three Georgia Tech massive open online courses (MOOCs) have been included on the 2020 Class Central Best Online Courses of All Time list, which ranks the top 200 online courses from across the globe.
The list is based on more than 125,000 learner reviews and features courses from about 100 universities in 23 countries.
As a search engine and review site for online courses, Class Central aggregates courses from various online learning providers to make it easy for learners to find the best courses in almost any subject. Their course catalog focuses primarily on free (or free to audit) courses from universities, offered through massive open online course (MOOC) platforms.
Recently, MOOCs have seen exponential growth due to a newly remote workforce pursuing professional learning during Covid-19. Enrollments at Coursera –an online MOOC provider–skyrocketed 640%, while enrollments at Udemy–another MOOC provider–was up over 400%. Likewise, in FY20, Georgia Tech Professional Education (GTPE) saw a nearly 200% increase in lifetime learners, largely stemming from the rise in MOOC completions.
As Associate Dean for Learning Systems at GTPE, Yakut Gazi believes there will be a continued shift toward these types of courses as the pandemic forces faculty and students to embrace online delivery.
"For decades, online education has lingered at the edges, meeting niche needs but having limited impact on the larger higher education landscape until very recently, with the advent of at-scale learning programs for both credit-seeking and professional development programs as a result of MOOCs. The coronavirus has expanded online education’s marginal role, using it in service of existing residential instructional practices," she noted.
The Georgia Tech MOOCs that made the 2020 Class Central Best Online Courses of All Time list include: Computing in Python I: Fundamentals and Procedural Programming, Introduction to Engineering Mechanics, and Mechanics of Materials I: Fundamentals of Stress & Strain and Axial Loading.
