Readers of past posts here on Online Learning Success may have seen the links to my in-depth course reviews on Class Central, which is a search engine and review site for online courses popularly known as MOOCs or Massive Open Online Courses.

Background

Class Central was founded by Dhawal Shah in late 2011 after he took the Artificial Intelligence MOOC produced by Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig. Dhawal could see more and more free online courses appearing, so he decided to create a catalogue of them as they became available. While working as a software engineer, Dhawal set up Class Central as a side project.

Coursera & Udacity launched in January 2012, edX and FutureLearn later in 2012. Since Class Central was founded in 2011, it has actually been around longer than all of the major course providers.

The catalogue grew rapidly, so in 2013 Dhawal went full time on Class Central after receiving some funding. It was an easy decision, but a complicated process (due to visa rules) to quit his full-time job and convert his hobby into a business. The website has now been visited by more than twelve million people, with thousands of views every day. Six hundred thousand have signed up for newsletters such as https://www.class-central.com/newsletter/mooc-report-april2018. Around ten thousand courses are listed and over forty thousand reviews of courses have been written.

Course Reviews

The reviews are a powerful part of Class Central’s success. It’s easy to contribute a review. Potential learners can read what past students think of the courses and can vote for helpful reviews. Each month, a list of the most popular new courses is published, according to reader interest. Annual lists, such as The best online courses of 2017 are also released, based on the star ratings and number of reviews given by students.

As well as being a search engine for online courses, Class Central has handy articles such as the Top 50 MOOCs of All Time. The Massive List of MOOC Providers Around The World includes links to 33 MOOC providers with more mentioned in the comments below the article. If you are looking for a career in a field such as Data Science or Machine Learning, take a look at the Career Guides.

Changes in the Last Six Years

In the six years since Class Central was founded, many changes have taken place. Originally, most courses issued free unverified certificates to students who passed the course. Coursera and edX courses were all free, and anyone with an interest in the subject could enroll. Now, certificates from all the major course providers are behind a paywall. Sometimes the assessment items and, occasionally, some optional course resources can only be accessed after paying the fee. Some courses are even offered on a paid-only basis. These can be identified by a small green $ symbol beside the course name on course list pages.

Class Central originally catalogued just the free, open courses (available to anyone). There were no matriculation or minimum education requirements, unlike enrolling in an on-campus university program. Over the last six years, though, the lines have blurred. Apart from the money aspect, some online course providers are now offering Master’s degrees only available to students who have already completed a Bachelor’s degree: see 9 Legit Master’s Degrees You Can Now Earn Completely Online. If you want credit for doing an online course, take a look at MOOCs For Credit.

You can also delve into the archives and look back at annual roundups from past years. On October 15, 2012, Dhawal wrote that the number of free online courses had exploded to around 250, from the three that first became available on October 10, 2011. The one-article summary of MOOCs in 2012 (titled The MOOC Juggernaut: One Year Later) has grown over the years to fourteen articles reviewing 2017.

YouTube Interview with Founder Dhawal Shah

In February 2017, Quincy from freecodecamp interviewed Dhawal. You can see the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AGWQONqZAs. In the video, Dhawal mentions that he thinks MOOCs are often better presented than on-campus classes. The lecturers prepare the videos carefully to avoid “fluff” that can creep into a live lecture. Student reviews quickly identify any poorly-presented MOOCs. When pressed, Dhawal nominated Learning How to Learn, which has had more than 2 million enrollments since it was launched in 2014, as the best all-round online course for anyone to try.

There are some unobtrusive advertisements on the site, clearly labelled AD, and Class Central is also financially compensated by some course providers. Dhawal would love to figure out a revenue model so all ads could be removed in the future.

Create Your Class Central Profile

You can sign up to keep track of your courses and interests. If, like me, you want to increase your blog audience, change your profile status from private to public. You can also add a photo, your website and interests. You can opt to receive Class Central newsletters notifying you of upcoming courses in your subjects of interest, as well as the monthly MOOC report. My problem is that I constantly find new interesting courses! There are not enough hours in the day to complete all that interest me.

My Involvement with Class Central

I discovered Class Central in late 2015 and in 2016 wrote a review of The Science of the Solar System, which was one of the best classes I have taken. Dhawal invited me to write an in-depth review, which I did: see In-depth Review: The Science of the Solar System. I enjoy writing reviews and over the next year or so I wrote several other in-depth reviews for Class Central: Origins—Formation of the Universe, Solar System, Earth and Life, Genealogy: Researching Your Family Tree, and Mountains 101.

A few other articles I have written have also appeared on Class Central, such as Five Years of MOOC Trends. Now, I am working part-time assisting the Class Central team, answering emails and writing occasional articles.

A Final Thought

Class Central is a useful resource to find online courses and help others decide which are the best courses to try.

By Pat Bowden, published April 10, 2018.