What’s AHEAD Poll # 1: Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)

This report summarizes the results of a poll administered to the alumni of the Executive Doctorate program in Higher Education Management at the University of Pennsylvania (n 248). 191 individuals responded during the one-week period in which the poll was open (March 24, 2014 to April 1, 2014). The poll included seven questions and was estimated to require no more than 10 minutes to complete. This report is limited to respondents working at public, private not-for-profit, and for-profit colleges and universities in the United States. We also excluded three surveys with incomplete responses. The final number of respondents included in this report is 153. The findings over-represent the perspectives of leaders of private not-for-profit four-year institutions, as 73% of respondents were from institutions in this sector. About one-fifth (19%) of respondents are leaders of public four-year institutions, 3% are from private for-profit four-year institutions, and 5% are from public two-year institutions. Half of respondents (46%) are in administrative roles, 33% in academic positions, 10% in finance positions, and 11% in student affairs. About 29% of respondents work at institutions that currently offer MOOCs. This report also includes results of a content analysis of comments contributed by 17 respondents at institutions that offer MOOCs and 51 respondents at institutions that do not offer MOOCs. Additional commentary is available at https://ahead-penn.org/whats-ahead/moocs-commentary