I'm here with Siya Raj Purohit who is a program manager here at Udacity,
managing the app entrepreneurship degree.
Thank you so much for talking to us today Siya.
>> Thanks, David.
Good to be here.
>> So, Siya is an experienced online student as well as a manager of online
programs.
So I wanted to start off by asking you,
what are some of the exciting new things that are coming out in online education
that some of our students might not yet be aware of?
>> So a year ago,
Harvard Business School launched a program called HBX CORE.
So what is really interesting about this, is that instead of disrupting,
it's core business, which is they took graduate students with an MBA degree.
Instead, they're extending the pipeline, by targeting students who
are undergraduates, or just before the MBA stage, to teach them critical
skills in economics, business analytics and financial accounting.
So these are the three classes that HPX offers.
And it's a thee month program.
It costs about $1,500 to $1,800.
And students complete it in cohorts essentially.
So each cohort consist of about 600 students.
And they go through the program and gain these skills.
And then take a final exam at a Pearson Test Center.
So it's a pretty interesting experience, and
I just completed that, about two months ago.
>> That's very cool.
It's interesting that, I think, when online education first got started.
And the reason why we have separate modules in this course for
online learning and MOOCs, is that when online education really got
started a few years ago MOOCs were really all the rage.
And it was about these giant open courses and
we're just going to put it out there and if we build it, they will come.
But I think we're seeing more and more of what you're describing of more
closed, somewhat gated programs, that have a monetary cost associated with
them and have some kind of credential associated at the end.
>> Yeah.
>> And we see the same thing at Coursera and here at Udacity.
Can you comment on the new initiatives and those directions at those companies?
>> So finding that in putting courses together is packaged like this
improved attention rates across all companies.
So HPX Core has a completion rate of 85%,
which is really high for online learning.
Maybe because of Harvard's name or maybe because of the giant price tag, but
it's really working for these companies.
And across MOOCs, the average completion rate used to be between three percent
and thirteen percent.
And with nano-degrees, specializations by Coursera, and the programs such
as HPX Core, they've gone up to between 60 and 80 percent completion rate.
>> Wow.
>> Which is much more,
because I guess you get a degree of certification at the end.
Coursera specializations are really interesting also.
I've looked into the business fundamentals one.
The is providing collaboration of Coursera.
It consists of four courses and the capstone project in the end.
So what I really liked about it was the capstone project was designed with 500
start ups, which was this very cool incubator program.
And it was like, an option you need to page 500 start ups, or
start a problem your solving.
However, what I didn't like about the course was that all the, or
the program, was that all the four courses were about big business things.
So that's like, about like financial accounting the big company or
like business analysis at a big company.
And not like the start up kind of problems you're trying to solve.
As a start up you have no data, you have nothing to like-
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> No finances, either.
So, and it's a bit disconnected there.
But I really like where they're going with that, and
I think that with Vordan's backing, it may get somewhere.
>> Yeah, University of Maryland has one on that platform that's on
entrepreneurship as well.
It actually has the exact opposite thing, it covers all about funding and
startup issues.
And basically, by the time that you're in a company with 15 employees,
speculation has nothing to say about you,
it's all about getting to that initial point.
But why do you think there's such a move right now?
I guess you already commented on it.
The retention rates are higher with these specializations or nano-degrees,
what we do, XSeries on edX.
Why do you think the retention goes up when we have
those knit together programs as opposed to the individual courses?
>> I guess because each of the programs gives you a goal.
HPX is trying to pitch that this is preparing you for business school.
And they have a huge pipeline of students who are going to be actually
part of business school.
Coursera is incentivizing students to go through the Warden specialization.
Just to get free Warden application in the end.
So those kind of initiatives are helping.
And of course you get [INAUDIBLE] in careers.
So we're trying to help them get an expense for
careers, which is great, too.
So I think those goals are great.
And also, having a cohort system, of students who are kind of encouraging
you, and also holding you liable to complete, really helps, too.
>> Yeah. I think we see a lot of that
in the LMS program as well.
It's actually built in very many ways around the same model.
It's a credential at the end.
It's some people who join the same semester, and the semesters are long
enough that you kind of have a cohort within the semesters.
But I would be willing to bet, and in fact we have evidence that suggests that
the courses on their own are, they're nice,
but very few people take them if there's not that big credential at the end.
There's something about that big external motivator that, yeah,
is the reason why people go to traditional college.
And it sounds like they are trying to include that in some more online
education initiatives,
even if it means compromising the massiveness of these issues in the past.
>> So, sometimes I was not very motivated during the HBX Core program,
because I have a full time job, this is very difficult thing to do.
>> I think we can all sympathize.
>> Ten to fifteen hours a week gets hard.
So what encouraged me during that time was my classmates.
I became really good friends with some of them and they would be like,
okay come on Siya.
The deadline's two days from now.
Let's get started [LAUGH] and those kind of things.
And also what HPS courted very successfully that I think other
platforms are trying to emulate is provided a social factor.
So you can hear your classmates' responses and
stuff as you go through the course.
So, when they ask questions, and
then they direct questions to you, it keeps you motivated to answer them.
>> Yeah. >> So,
I think those two components really helped.
>> Yeah, absolutely.
Do you have anything last you want to say to our online students from
the perspective of either someone producing online education or
a consumer of online education?
>> Yes, so it's very difficult to complete courses.
Especially when you have other commitments.
But I think everyone should find at least one friend
in every class that they take to make sure that the buddy system works and
everyone goes through these courses together.
I think that online education will only work
if people get incentivized with those kind of social interactions.
So definitely find a friend and get started on that.
>> And as designers of ed tech also.
Designing things in such a way, that the people using your product or
using your tools, can connect with others and possibly partner with them.
Or even design tools that explicitly facilitate that.
So many of you might be interested in computer supportive collaborative
learning, where you can actually develop tools that make
this kind of collaboration at a distance much more easy.
I think one thing that's been very empowering to me in this program,
is that the online environment kind of creates this 24, seven classroom.
And because of that, you always have people you can talk to.
And you can always go to the classroom and find someone to chat with.
And building tools that can enhance that even more.
That could really improve what we do in online education.
So thank you so much for talking to us Siya.
>> Thanks David. >> Thank you all for watching.