Small private online courses score over open learning

 The ease and flexibility of online learning may have made the concept of massive open online courses (MOOCs) very popular. However, one particular variation of the MOOCs is gradually gaining ground among mid-career professionals and a few academic institutions in the city.

Small private online courses (SPOCs) implies learning in smaller and more focused groups as compared to the thousands of people who enrol for MOOCs or distance education courses.

Ashwin Damera is the co-founder of Emeritus Institute of Management, a start-up that provides various management programs from IVY league institutions in the US using the SPOC model. One of the reasons SPOC is gradually gaining ground according to him is due to the low completion rates of MOOCs. “Only 5% of people who enrol for MOOCs manage to complete their respective courses. It is only a one-way learning that does not thrive on feedback or group work," said Ashwin.

SPOCs, on the other hand, caters to groups of five or even 300 people as a closed network. "It gives a sense of social belonging where people are paired in terms of their interest. There is continuous feedback, interactions, and suggestions between members of the group. There is also an 85% course completion rate in SPOCs offered by us" said Ashwin. His start-up has a presence in major cities in the country, however, Bengaluru has the third highest enrollments among them.

Reethika Shetty, a learning and development professional from the city, is about to enrol for an SPOC in general management. She said: “There are many reasons why I want to enrol for an SPOC. For one, I have 16 years experience in the profession and the kind of similar profiles who will enroll in the same course is a big draw.  I come from the learning and development background and I know that social and group learning like the SPOCs the new way of imparting learning.”    

The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) is probably one of the few institutions in the city that has been using the SPOC model in its classrooms. It has been offering MOOCs since last year. Along with this, the SPOC model is also used in its postgraduate management program and the executive program. “We use SPOCs as part of our ‘blended learning’ method of teaching. We mainly use it for preparatory courses such as the basics of accounting, statistics,” said Ramya Srinivasan, program manager, edX, IIMB.

P D Jose, chairperson, MOOCs Development at IIMB, highlighted how there was a tendency at an increasing ‘customisation’ of learning where people in their mid careers are opting for courses of a specific fit rather than go for a full fledged ones.