Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platforms have been around for over a decade. Typically, they offer a wide variety of online courses for students, instructors and even organizations to help hone skills that are essential in today’s professional environments. The most popular players in the industry include Udemy, Cousera, Udacity and edX. The interesting thing is that before people were confined to their homes, these businesses were actually losing revenue.
That was then – in the BC (Before Corona) world. Now, the world is taking to online learning en-masse, leading to a big rise in traffic to these platforms. .
Coursera, for instance, saw 10 million new enrollments from mid-March to mid-May, seven times higher than before. Both Udacity and EdX have also witnessed a similar increase in enrollments. Udemy, currently the largest platform, saw a 425% increase in users who wanted to take courses.
A comprehensive study, ‘Online Learning Step-Up’, released by Udemy throws some light on what the world is learning. It gives an interesting insight into the mindsets of people at this time – the Italians, for instance, are learning the guitar, the Spanish the piano, the Americans Photoshop, and the Indians business fundamentals and communication skills.
Here’s a little more detail about what the report revealed.
In the US creative courses like Adobe Illustrator saw a 326 per cent increase; demand for guitar lessons in Italy rose by 431 per cent, for Photoshop by 347 per cent; the Spanish, on the other hand are learning music – piano lessons saw a 466 per cent increase – and also all about investing (262 per cent rise). For Indians, however, courses like Business Fundamentals and Communication Skills saw a 281 per cent and 606 per cent rise respectively.
What else? Let’s take a look.