Coursera is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC). This online education website offers courses from top universities like Stanford, Michigan, Duke and many more. The subjects included in the course are engineering, business, medicine, arts, etc. Both free and payable courses are available in Coursera. It consists of lecture videos and presentations, assignments, quizzes and so on.
Coursera is founded in 2012 by Stanford professors Andrew and Daphne. The platform also provides specializations and degrees. Coursera has a partnership with more than 192 top global institutions from around 43 countries. And the course offers 3200+ courses in 13 languages. The learners in Coursera were 26 million in 2017 and it has grown up to 40 million in 2019.
How do Coursera courses work?
Coursera consists of video lectures that you can watch at a convenient time or on a weekly basis.
Many of the courses are part of Coursera specialization. There are over 250 Cousera specialization courses available on a subscription basis.
There is a 7 days free trial for the first sign-up. And after that, you will be charged monthly based on the fee of the course you have chosen. As faster you complete the course, the less you will pay per month.
When you are signed up for specialization courses and you only want to complete one or two courses and not the full specialization courses, then you need to cancel the subscription after receiving the certificate. Coursera has a free mobile app for both Android and iOS which is easy to use and you can download videos in your mobile and watch offline.
In Coursera there are two types of certificates:
- Course Certificate
- Specialization Certificate
If you want a course certificate you need to pay for the course or can apply for financial aid. You can earn the certificate if you complete the graded assignments, homework, quizzes, and pass online exams with required marks. The pass mark will vary according to the course. Most of the courses give chances to redo the exams. And even you can submit your assignment once again if the first attempt were not successful. To get a specialization certificate, you have to earn individual certificates for the whole courses inside the specialization course.
Which are the similar websites of Coursera
Similar to Coursera Website, there are other course providers partnered with top universities and tech companies. The list of top MOOC providers are:
Coursera Business Model
Coursera has a stable business model. There are 3100+ free to audit courses. The fee range of Signature Tracks is from $30 to $300, Specialization Courses are based on the monthly subscription that is ranged from $39 to $89. Fee for Online degree programs are quite big, $15,000 to $35,000. And Finally, Coursera for business, it’s service cost is $400 per employee for one year.
The three revenue-generating factors of Coursera are:
- Fee-Based Courses
- Specialization Certificates
- Course Certificates
Signature Track was the first revenue-generating factor of Coursera which is launched in 2013. To earn a verified certificate learners have to pay a fee for the course. Later signature track got expanded and changed the name as Course Certificate. This option is available for several courses in Coursera. Just after launching Signature Track Coursera had generated $4 Million within seven months.
Specialization is a feature with a group of courses. In order to get a Specialization Certificate, you need to earn certificates for each course listed inside that specialization. This feature was launched in 2014. Currently, there are about 25 courses available in different subjects. The final stage of Specialization is the Capstone Project. The project allows the learners to apply the things they have learned to real-world challenges.
Purchase Course, where learners have to pay to get access to the graded assignments. Here is an audit option where learners can access to the course materials.
Coursera for business was launched in 2016. Coursera has partnered with several businesses and this platform is for businesses to train their employees. More than 1800 businesses are using this service. The service cost is $400 per employee.
Coursera is also offering degrees to students. There are about 14-degree programs from different universities. This program includes MBAs, Machine Learning Programs, Technology related and so on.
Key Challenges of Coursera
The biggest challenge of Coursera is to maintain its revenue and competition. Other companies like edX, Udacity, LinkedIn are also offering services like Coursera offers. In order to stay top among these companies, Coursera needs to increase its rates in the coming years. Here is the list of Coursera courses that you can browse.
How to Build a Website like Coursera?
So, If you are in search of building a website like Cousera, you will get the solution from Sparken or you can also check a similar project that we have done for our client, the project was Tutor Path.
The mission of Sparken is to find the right tutor for you with the best subject expertise, faculty endorsements, and good student reviews. Tutor Path will help you to find tutors from your community. You will get the search results based on the social graphs. Thus you will be able to find tutors easily.
