Texas universities increasingly are opening up classes to anyone with an email address and an internet connection, even as they struggle to measure learner success and gain insight into the unseen millions logging on to learn.

Few students who register for massive open online courses, or MOOCs, are finishing them.

Completion rates at the University of Texas at Austin, for example, have ranged up to just 13 percent, officials said. At Rice University, between 5 percent and 8 percent of registrants finished their courses, the school reported.

Still, these figures are not indicators the experiment in broad-scale online learning is failing, educators said.

“We don’t know what drives these learners,” said Caroline Levander, Rice University’s vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives and digital education. “Assuming that completion is the metric of success doesn’t seem fair or reasonable. It’s too early to know what success will mean for this group of learners.”

Rice, one of the earliest schools to offer post-secondary education to a worldwide audience, is involved with two MOOC providers — EdX and Coursera.

Without educator support, 'there is no hope’ for MOOCs

The University of Houston will begin offering courses through a non-exclusive relationship with Coursera later this spring.

A key reason for the low completion rates reported is the low bar for MOOC entry. Students might pay $1,000 to take a traditional college course. They have skin in the game.

By contrast, anyone with an email address and internet connection can join a massive open online course.

After enrollment, students can participate at their pleasure. Few fully engage to read assignments, write papers, collaborate in study groups and submit projects, experts say.

Still, according to educators, there’s merit in every stage of MOOC engagement for teaching and learning.

“When you have 80,000 students taking a test, you get to see, at scale, what’s working and what’s not,” Levander said. “There’s a huge data analytics opportunity here. I think a lot of schools are interested in that.”

Worldwide appeal
Rice professors have taught seven MOOCs on topics ranging from the fundamentals of electrical engineering to nanotechnology and analytical chemistry.

UT-Austin offered four MOOCs last fall and will present four this spring and at least one this fall.

One mechanical engineering course called Energy 101, offered through EdX, enrolled 44,000 people; of these, roughly 38,000 students representing 173 countries participated. Only 7,238 engaged over the entire 10 weeks, and 4,707 received certificates.

That’s about 12 percent completion among participants and 11 percent completion among enrollees — roughly double the school’s average MOOC completion rate of 6 percent, according to Harrison Keller, vice provost for higher education policy and research.

“I don’t buy into some of the public discussions that say MOOCs are a failure because of the completion rates,” Keller said. “As we learn more about who takes these courses and what their experiences are like, that will help us tailor MOOCs to certain audiences.”

The University of Texas System invested $5 million and committed another $5 million to become a major player with EdX. This fall, UT-Austin will begin offering a dual-credit statistics course for high school and community college students in collaboration with San Jacinto College as well as other community colleges and high schools.

Degree isn’t everything

Johannes Heinlein, EdX’s senior director of strategic partnerships, said he is encouraged by those who have flocked to enroll in courses — even if they don’t finish.

“In the traditional context, a degree and a certificate are important, but from the learning experience, a degree is not the only way to define a positive outcome,” Heinlein said.

But even that is changing as institutions charge tuition for MOOCs, offer certifications and collaborate with other teachers across the learning spectrum.

Rice soon will offer its first specialization course — a computer programming class with a completion certificate. At least 20 percent of participants are expected to finish this and other “signature track” courses.

Jim Ward, Houston general manager for Two Sigma Investments, leads an office of software developers who support a New York-based investment firm. He said his company has encouraged employees to “continuously learn and grow in their fields.”

That has meant taking college classes, “but the logistical difficulties of taking a very challenging computer science course at Rice in person make this quite difficult for most people.”

Growing in popularity
MOOC expansion continues across the state.

Texas A&M University in College Station “is seriously considering joining EdX later this year,” said Pierce Cantrell Jr., vice president and associate provost for information technology.

UH plans to offer MOOCs on the history of human spaceflight, the ethics of science and programming handheld devices this year. Another pair of courses will focus on helping high school students prepare for Advanced Placement calculus and statistics exams.

“I don’t even know what completion means because, with MOOCs … it’s a little like browsing,” said Jeff Morgan, UH’s associate provost for education, innovation and technology.

And even if all the high schoolers don’t complete the AP prep courses, it will improve the odds some do well enough on their tests to earn college credit.

“If we do that, I call it a success,” Morgan said, adding that the high school instructors may tweak their curriculums based on the MOOCs. “Those teachers have hundreds of students, and if they use some ideas from those courses to help their students, then that’s a victory.”

2014 Houston Chronicle. Distributed by MCT Information Services.

MOOC Video Resource

Making more out of MOOCs, an interview with John Mahaffie