Udacity to focus on individual student projects

NEW DELHI: Online learning platform Udacity is moving away from open access courses. Clarissa Shen, the company’s vice president and international executive, referred to massive open online courses (MOOCs) as “they are dead”, and said the company is moving away from them.

Udacity was set up in the US in 2012 when MOOCs were gaining popularity.

“Moocs are a failed product, at least for the goals we had set for ourselves,” said Shen, who was in India earlier this month. “Our mission is to bring relevant education which advances people in careers and socio-economic activities, and MOOCs aren't the way."

The company, which will be completing two years in India, has tailored itself to not bring in “millions of videos” but have a more curate experience. Since Udacity is in Silicon Valley, Shen said it is working closely with companies including Google, Amazon and IBM to curated industry standards for online education. “A lot of online learning companies focus on huge video libraries. But now we focus on projects that students can do, and at the end of the course which they can show to employers,” said Shen.

In July this year, Udacity tied up with Infosys for a training programme which would give students an opportunity to complete a nanodegree programme online before joining Infosys’ training programme in Mysore.