The most successful online courses are related to technology or other Computer Science-based skills, followed by career advancement (“Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills”, for example) and personal enrichment subjects. Missing are Liberal Arts classes (History, Art, Literature…).
These tendencies are also reflected in the world of paid online degrees, as shown by US News and World Report’s ranking.
Quartz.com has put together a list of the most popular courses right now on Coursera.org and edX.org.
| Coursera | |
|---|---|
| 1. Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects | University of California, San Diego |
| 2. Mastering Data Analysis in Excel | Duke University |
| 3. Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) | University of Michigan |
| 4. Machine Learning | Stanford University |
| 5. R Programming | Johns Hopkins University |
| 6. The Data Scientist’s Toolbox | Johns Hopkins University |
| 7. Tibetan Buddhist Meditation and the Modern World | University of Virginia |
| 8. An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python (Part 1) | Rice University |
| 9. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and ‘Skills | University of Michigan |
| 10. Introduction to Financial Accounting | University of Pennsylvania |
| 11. Introduction to Public Speaking | University of Washington |
| 12. Programming Mobile Applications for Android Handheld Systems: Part 1 | University of Maryland, College Park |
| 13. Introduction to Marketing | University of Pennsylvania |
| 14. Grammar and Punctuation | University of California, Irvine |
| 15. Introduction to Corporate Finance | University of Pennsylvania |
| 16. Principles of Valuation: Time Value of Money | University of Michigan |
| 17. Chinese for Beginners | Peking University |
| 18. Introduction to Programming with MATLAB | Vanderbilt University |
| 19. Project Management: The Basics for Success | University of California, Irvine |
| 20. Introduction to Big Data | University of California, San Diego |
| edX | |
|---|---|
| 1. CS50 | Harvard University |
| 2. Introduction to Programming With Python | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 3. Introduction to Linux | Jerry Cooperstein |
| 4. HTML5 | World Wide Web Consortium |
| 5. The Science of Happiness | University of California, Berkeley |
