ANNAMARIA DE SANTIS

There are many features that permit you to attribute the name "Mooc" (Massive Open Online Courses) to any training course; as many as those to be attributed to a Mooc to declare it a successful course. One of the peculiarities that distinguishes this phenomenon of open education is related to the number of students who can take part to the courses by networking from anywhere in the world and building new knowledge and new development prospects. How can we forget the 2300 online students who in 2007 participated as non-payers in the first officially course defined Mooc, "Connectivism and Connective Knowledge", held by George Siemens and Stephen Downes with the 25 students of the University of Manitoba for whom the course had been realized (Banzato, 2012)? If the number of members is interesting, the number of completions (the number of those who complete all the activities requested in a course) often worries: in the main international platforms this value is around 7% of the participants. EduOpen is a young network in which the number of students for course is around the thousands and the value of completions on average reaches 24% of registrations. Perhaps to joke or probably to reflect together, we are delighted to draw up a couple of rankings of the currently active courses on our portal.

Top Five - corsi con maggiore numero di iscritti

1. Precorso di calcolo (University of Padova) - 3855 
2. Nativi digitali, una nuova modalità di apprendimento (University of Milano Bicocca) – 2034 
3. La comunicazione web e il marketing digitale (University of Milano Bicocca) – 1897 
4. Imparare a imparare: i DSA nella scuola delle competenze (2a ed.) (University of Perugia) – 1876 
5. Metodologie e pratiche per la Digital Augmented Education (University di Milano Bicocca) – 1486 

Top Five - corsi con numero maggiore di completamenti

1. La valutazione di istituto e la valutazione di sistema (3a ed.) (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) – 57% 
2. La valutazione nella scuola 0-6 (3a ed.) (Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia) – 56% 
3. Tecnologie Didattiche e Percorsi di Inclusione (University of Salento) – 49% 
4. La valutazione degli apprendimenti (3a ed.) (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) – 47%
   Dal dato all’informazione (University of Ferrara) – 47% 
5. Introduzione a R (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) – 44%
   Imparare a imparare: i DSA nella scuola delle competenze (2a ed.) (University of Perugia) – 44%
   Condividere le memorie e il dialogo a scuola (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia) – 44% 

It’s not surprising that the courses with the highest number of students are not always those completed more frequentely by students; Mooc related to degree courses have a high numbers of completions (even over 50%) and the first places in the second ranking of this post.
In both rankings, courses dedicated to social sciences are popular: why? They are easier to attend online? Their number is the highest in our platform? Are they more interesting for teachers? Well, this is another story...
[Data updated in August 2018]