MOOC is a potent tool with job guarantees thrown in: Sebastian Thrun

Sebastian Thrun, the pioneer of MOOC (Massive Online Open Course), stepped down as Chief Executive Officer of Udacity last month. MOOC, which has been seen as a game changer, has faced many challenges.

In an interview to The Hindu , Mr. Thrun, now the Chairman and President of Udacity, speaks about MOOC’s evolution and challenges and the firm’s plans for India, its second biggest market after the U.S. Excerpts:

How has been the journey for MOOC ever since you pioneered it in 2011?

The MOOC model has become a very potent education tool. But, it cannot achieve success with just people passively watching videos.

We have evolved to a model where we guarantee many of our students a job based on the skills learned online else we fully reimburse their tuition.

What have been the significant lessons?

MOOC itself has very poor engagement and success rates. We have been able to materially change those through dedicated individual student services and strong collaboration with Silicon Valley industry giantssuch as Facebook and Google.

You have said in recent interviews that the free model of online education has not worked. Why?

Most students don’t even complete a single course for many reasons — from lack of engagement, mentorship and accountability to peer interaction. We have changed this with our Nanodegree pro- gramme.

What is the way forward for MOOC?

The momentum around MOOC has slowed but the new Udacity model is moving very fast. Going forward, we would love to extend our job guarantee (or money back) plan to all geographies, including India.

Top notch Indian employers such as Flipkart have hired Udacity Nanodegree graduates based solely on their performance in our programme, without any in-person interview.

The idea of ‘interview-less hiring’ is new and a trend we will see in the changing global job market.

In a country like India, how should we approach MOOC?

We need to help students who don’t have Internet access, and also increase the number of scholarships.

We believe Udacity has the right programmes for a huge technology industry that is desperately looking for new talent.