EdX Breaks Into World’s Top-1000 Websites
This upward trend has pushed EdX into the top 1000 websites in the world, thereby joining Coursera, which is ranked #373.
The coronavirus pandemic has increased people’s interest in MOOCs and online education, as reported by Class Central last week. We first noticed it on March 15th, when Class Central saw a surge in traffic as the US started implementing lockdown measures.
The last 48 hours have been crazy.
More than a million learners have used @classcentral to find their next course.
In one day we received more traffic than the entire month of February. pic.twitter.com/e0kIVE1NO3
— Dhawal Shah @[email protected] (@dhawalhshah) March 17, 2020
As people find themselves at home and with time on their hands, many have turned to online learning. Providers of free online courses, in particular, have gathered learners’ interest. As a result, all top MOOC platforms have been growing, which has reflected in their Alexa Rank. Even small MOOC providers such as Federica have leaped up the rankings.
April 5th Rank¹ |
Sessions (in millions)² | |
Coursera | #373 (+71) | 45 (↑67%) |
edX | #980 (+193) | 19.2 (↑52%) |
FutureLearn | #4,372 (+1,826) | 6.15 (↑116%) |
Class Central | #7,095 (+10,088) | 4.4 (↑406%) |
Federica | #474,659 (+305,738) | 0.18 (↑200%) |
MiriadaX | #62,327 (+16,777) | 0.73 (↑52%) |
Swayam | #9,937 (+1578) | 3.2 (↓27%) |
1. Based on Alexa Ranking. Numbers in parentheses point to the change in ranking since March 14th.
2. Number of sessions in March and percent change from February. Based on SimilarWeb data.
This upward trend has pushed EdX into the top 1000 websites in the world, thereby joining Coursera, which is ranked #373. Two of the world’s biggest websites are now MOOC providers.
Dr. Charles Severance (aka Dr. Chuck), University of Michigan Professor and instructor of the popular online course Programming for Everybody which is offered on three different platforms, also noticed enrollments increase on edX and Coursera.
Hey @jryoung – our @HigherEdSurge interview two weeks ago was too early to see the #CovidEffect – My data for the past two weeks from @edX and @coursera is pretty interesting. pic.twitter.com/kikt1U2Mk1
— Charles Severance (@drchuck) April 4, 2020
Dr. Barbara Oakley, who teaches one of the world’s most popular MOOCs, Learning How To Learn, mentioned that in just two weeks, over 65,000 learners have joined the course.
Mountains 101, one of Class Central’s Best Online Courses of All Time also reported a 300% increase in enrollments.
Providers have been responding to the situation by launching MOOCs on coronavirus and COVID-19 as well as temporary offers such as Coursera’s free certificate courses.