Measuring the success of scaleable open online courses

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to propose measures of online open course success for non-commercial institutional providers of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and other scaleable open online courses (SOOCs). Design/methodology/approach – The measures are derived from the characteristics of open online courses, existing knowledge about open online course providers and users and their motivations, and current practice in MOOC evaluation and data analytics. Findings – Current practices for evaluation of open online courses are dominated by MOOC analytics which provide insights into user demographics and behaviour with some implications for evaluation of reach and course design but leaving many unknowns. Measures for evaluation of success at the institutional level can be derived from institutional goals for open online courses. Success from the point of view of teachers and technical teams involved in design, development and delivery of open online courses can be derived from team members’ expect...